So the day of my gall bladder surgery starts with someone thinking it was a good idea for me to have to get the hospital at 6 AM. Seriously, this is pretty much as close to bedtime for me as it is to morning time. But, I get there (even showered!) and then wait in lines, check in, etc. Arnel and I are escorted to the ambulatory pre-surgery area...not an actual "room" but long hallways with privacy curtains. A series of people come in and ask me things and have me sign things, most of which I don't remember as it was, you will recall, very early in the morning. Since my surgery is where it is I have to take everything off to put on the always-lovely hospital gown...but I do get my own special pair of gray non-skid socks that I got to bring home! Woo hoo!
Filipino anesthetist comes in, looks directly at Arnel and asks him where he is from. Brief discussion ensues about languages and food and then she tells Arnel she will take good care of me. Good to know.
After a thankfully-uneventful trip to the restroom in above-mentioned hospital gown, it is ensured that no catheter will be required. Yea.
As I am the first surgery scheduled for that OR in the morning, I am wheeled in just a few minutes after the scheduled time of 7:30. People come at me from all sides, as I was warned they would, I feel groggy and mention the medicine must be working, and then someone is nicely yelling at me to wake up.
This is where it gets fun. I don't want to wake up. I mean, I want to, but some part of my body is rebelling. I DO wake up...but yet...not. And my legs are inexplicably shivering. Strike that. Shivering doesn't do justice to what is happening. They move me from the 'recovery' area to the 'phase 2' area, which means I get to sit in a strange chair instead of lay on the gurney. My legs stop "shivering" but will bear absolutely no weight. They have that horrid restless feeling, made all the worse by the fact that I am still sort of going in and out of consciousness. There is a small TV next to my chair but I overhear the nurse tell Arnel (who has been paged to join me at this point) something to the effect that I'm too out of it so he can turn it his direction and watch what he wants. Which he does.
We'd been told the surgery would be an hour to an hour-and-a-half, and it was an hour fifteen. Recovery was to be about 45 minutes to an hour. I was there four hours. I slept-woke up-slept-woke up...I honestly don't know if there were longer sleep cycles in there or just a whole lot of short ones. I remember Arnel swinging the TV around at one point to show me the Monty Python sketch he was laughing at...might have been the parrot one??mMy legs still felt just...icky, antsy, restless, weak. I was instructed to drink water to flush the anesthesia out of my system and I could go home after I peed. I did drink a couple cups of water, eventually, but had no urge to pee. When I finally did have the urge I failed miserably. That meant I got a bladder scan which confirmed that there was indeed, product to be eliminated. All the pressing encouraged me to give it another try. Sweet gal wheeled me down to the bathroom again (because my legs are still most uncooperative!) and waits, and waits, and waits some more. Finally I've done all I can, and it turns out it is enough! Go, me!
At this point they can't get me out of there fast enough. Doesn't seem to matter that I have a slight fever and can't walk so I guess that isn't really out of the norm. They call to sweet teens to wheel me out since I'm still not walking and I make it to the car. It feels GREAT to prop my legs up on the dashboard on the way home, and I continue to doze off on the ride home.
I make it up the stairs surprisingly easily, crash on the bed and it feels great to be able to get in a more comfortable position. More sleep, more leg ickiness. At this point I also notice my mouth is dry. Like, REALLY dry. Oddly, annoyingly dry. I get into a routine of sleep, wake up to pee, repeat. Every. twenty. minutes. TMI WARNING: I peed so many times I went through an entire roll of toilet paper and then some in maybe nine hours. Yeah. I do notice some occasional relief in my legs, which is encouraging. I also notice some pain beginning in my incisions, though minor. Arnel has to leave at one point to take boys to football practice and brings me food before going. I'm needing to avoid fatty foods until my liver takes over the functions previously performed, albeit at only like 35% function, by my gall bladder. We settle on raisin toast with no butter. Arnel brings me the toast and heads out. I spend what seems like several minutes trying to get down one bite of toast but my mouth is THAT dry. When I get the one down successfully I'm too scared to push my luck and try more. I get Laura to search for low-fat yogurt for me which is much more successful. I eat two. And then some applesauce before bed. Fortunately I'm not really hungry but I know that I need to eat to get my strength back in my legs. Headache kicks in. (At this point in my writing Gabe has come into the room and learns I'm blogging and I'm told to write about him. So there it is. I'm also getting a lecture on Sylar? Sylor? from him.)
By late evening my legs are tolerable and I can stay awake for longer periods. I'm encouraged that this isn't permanent. I only slept four or five hours overnight and then did more napping this morning. My legs are almost normal, mouth is much, much better but today my incisions hurt like I thought they should. I'm okay with that...I can deal with the pain much better than that leg stuff yesterday! I'm not even needing any over-the-counter pain medication.
Oh, and I learned last night that part of the reason I didn't have pain yesterday (if not all the reason) is that the nurse gave my some pain narcotics of some kind (vicodin? percocet?) in my IV, which I didn't know about at the time. So, I'm not sure how much of all the side effect were from the anesthesia or the pain meds but I don't suppose it matters much. I'm still taking the day off today but I hope by tomorrow I can be back to doing some preparations for starting school since that is right around the corner!
