Long awaited update :)

I feel like I’ve been through a couple of wars in the past few days since surgery. Whoever told me that it wasn’t going to be that painful after surgery, and that I wouldn’t care about walking and moving around because of all of the pain medication were SUPER WRONG!!!!!! The pain I had Thursday and Friday especially was EXCRUCIATING. There is nothing on Earth that can describe that feeling in words. For anyone who’s had surgery, you know what I’m talking about. Every little move, every breath, every batting of your eye is painful. All I can think is that later on as time progresses, I’ll forget some of that pain, but it’s still pretty fresh right now.

I am sipping my lukewarm broth right now, after having been up since 8:00 or so. Being home feels wonderful, and I am slowly getting my energy back. Let me tell you what an angel Chris has been. I never had any question before in my mind, but the way he has treated me after surgery, and the way he has been there for me…there is just nothing like it. All of the talks about my fears before the surgery, attending all of the appointments with me, and he was by my side as a second nurse the whole time in the hospital. The night before the surgery, he gave me a beautiful “journey” pendant necklace, which took my breath away. Obviously this is very fitting since we will be going through this journey together. He also wrote me 5 letters, which focus on the 5 love languages- a book which has been recommended by some of his co-workers. He wrote me a letter for each love language-physical touch, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, quality time, and acts of service—how he will show me these things in different ways after the surgery. He has been absolutely wonderful in so many ways, and I could spend hours and hours talking about him and all that he has done for me.

Here is a timeline of the actual days in the hospital:
Thursday: surgery- this took much longer than expected. Once the performed the procedure, and flushed some water and air down there, there were tiny bubbles which escaped, signifying a leak. He basically had to do the whole surgery over again, re-cutting the stomach and the intestine, and attaching them together with a new stapler and there were no leaks after that. He said the main problem was the first stapler—if didn’t work like it was supposed to. So, the surgery ended up taking about 5 hours instead of 90 minutes. Thursday was very blurry for me. I felt in and out of consciousness the whole day- I would hear certain conversations and then blank out again. I just remember there being SO MUCH PAIN, when I was awake, and I really regretted the surgery.

Thursday night into Friday: I remember really getting after two of the nurses Thursday night. My oxygen was getting low-about 80%, and they want it to be at 90. 2 nurses came in and told me very politely, “Christina, we need you to take nice slow, deep breaths”. Well, that was all fine and dandy, except I just couldn’t do it. It hurt so much, that I could not get a deep breath. I started having anxiety over the fact that I couldn’t get in a deep breath. Finally I told the nurse, “I just can’t do it, so stop saying the same things over again. I’m trying.” Chris said she put her hands up and said, “Alright then” and left the room. After that I started thinking that I need some Xanax, which is what I take for my anxiety. When I feel an attack coming on, I usually have a hard time breathing, so that’s what was happening. After asking for it repeatedly Thursday and then Friday as well, they gave me some Adavan in my IV…but I was angry that it took so long. They kept telling me before surgery that they would give me my anxiety medicine normally, and the surgery wouldn’t affect that. That was one of the hardest hurdles to overcome in the hospital, and once I had some medicine available to me for anxiety, things were much much better.

Friday: They took me in the morning for a barium swallow test, to check again for leaks. This is normally not done afterwards anymore, but since they had found some originally, they wanted to be sure. That was another painful experience…having to wait and wait, coming in and out of consciousness, and having to drink lots of stuff. One thing that REALLY annoyed me, was the two women I was with for the majority of the test. It was pretty obvious, that one of them was teaching the other one what to do. So it went like this, “So, next I should put the machine here?” and the other one would say too sweetly, “No, actually first we’ll do it like this and then put it there. Remember about blah blah blah?” What I wanted to shout was THIS WILL TAKE HALF THE TIME IF THE FIRST ONE WOULD JUST DO THE FREAKIN TEST BY HERSELF!!! Must I listen to the two of you about each thing you’re doing? The man that came in to read the test was nice, and he helped me keep my sanity, but it was just another unpleasant experience.

Later on, they took me for another test, and this one was to see if things were going into the intestine correctly. My mom and Chris were there for that, and were really worried about the results, but luckily things came out normal. The one complaint I have about that test, was one of the guys who helped me get from the bed to the table was rough at first, I cried out in pain, and he was like, “sorry” and after that he stepped away so the rest of the people could help me. Geez…is he that rough with everyone? Traveling around the hospital in a rolling bed is an experience too. You’re not in control, and you can feel every bump.
They took my catheter out on Friday, and I had a discovery soon after that—I had my period!! I have not gotten my period on my own but about 3 times in the past 13 years or so, so that was quite a shock. It is kind of amazing why it happened, and of course threw another wrench into dealing with that too after the surgery. Chris was really worried that I was bleeding from something else, but we were finally able to convince him that it was my period. We still don’t know from the doctor why it happened. Also, I’m going to get even more gross here ;) I actually had two small bowel movements. Chris said when he told the nurses, they did the “happy poopy dance” like I was 2 again.  I guess once that happens, they know things are working correctly, and normally it doesn’t happen until a few days later.

Saturday: Went by pretty uneventfully. I felt better and was getting a little stronger. I had started the liquids which were going down fine, and taking all of my medicines regularly. I still needed help using the bathroom, and I wasn’t walking around much, but I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Chris got a call from my surgeon, who had gone out of town on Saturday, and he checked in which was great. We had a visit from Dr. Hamly, who brought his little kids with him on his rounds, and he was the doctor checking in on me since mine was gone. His kids were wearing scrubs, which was so cute, and they even used the foam on their hands to wash them as they left the room.

Sunday: I got the all clear that I could go home in the morning. We were prepared for an 11:00 departure, so Chris spent the morning packing up, and taking things to the car. I was off oxygen now, and doing fine with breathing on my own. So, in order to have a comfortable ride home, and to help with the pain I currently had, I took 2 oxycodone and my xanax. Well…that little cocktail had me asleep in minutes, and I slept for about 2 hours. When I woke up, my oxygen was low again, and it sounded like they were worried and didn’t want me to leave! I told them it’s just because I didn’t sleep with my CPAP during the nap, and then after a little while after they hooked me back up to oxygen, it was raised again, and I was able to go home around 5:00. They went over my discharge papers with me, gave me my prescriptions, and we were off.

Being home was good, but I was really tired and sore. We’re borrowing a recliner from my parents, which has been great, so I’ve got a little cave set up for me downstairs. It’s surrounded by TV trays with books, my laptop, gifts, cards, and my medicines and water bottle.

The liquid diet has been fine so far…it just gets to be so tedious that I have to drink every 15 minutes. In the hospital when they weighed me on Friday, I weighed 17 lbs higher than I had the day before. That was all from the gas they use to inflate your belly, and the IV liquids they had me on. Once I started going to the bathroom, I had to go every hour, and I peed a LOT! When they weighed me again before I left, I think I had lost about 10 of those pounds, and at our scale at home now, I’m about 2 pounds down from my weight on Thursday morning pre-surgery. Today I weighed the same as yesterday, which is a little discouraging, but I can’t look on that at all. I have to see the fact that this WILL work, and I guess I have lost about 19 lbs post surgery, which is good. I still do feel some gas, so I don’t think I’m finished with that yet.

I’ve been so spoiled by everyone, and even though I’m doing individual thank you notes, thank you all for the cards, emails, phone calls, facebook messages, gifts, flowers…all of the little special things you’ve done to tell me you’re thinking about me. I know that I have a ton of support as I continue through this journey.
One thing I want to say, is even though I had a lot of complaints at the hospital, I really liked my nurses, and everyone there was great. I’m sure a lot of it was ME, and once I was feeling better I wasn’t so grumpy.

Every day I feel stronger, but I still have some pain. It is mainly on my left side, under my breast, which is where my stomach is. I have been taking 1 percocet every 4 hours to help with that, and stretching and moving around some helps as well. I wonder if I have more pain in that area, because they spent so long there during the surgery. We’ll have to ask the doctor. I have an appt. with the doctor tomorrow, to take my staples out from where he put the drain in. Also, tonight there is a seminar at Duke, from 6-7:30 that Chris and I are going to attend, so I can listen and share some of the things I’ve been going through.
I have decided not to come back to school early, before the three weeks is up. They don’t want me to go back for 3 weeks, and said you could only go back early if you have a desk job and you wouldn’t be moving around or doing that much. Having a 15 liquid diet is hard enough to manage, surprisingly, and I definitely could not do that AND teach and worry about all of the demands of school too. So, I’ll end up going back on September 14th, instead of tracking in on the 8th.

Well…that was a lot for now, and I’m sure I’ll think of more things to write about the past few days, but that really tired me out! Take care and I hope everyone is doing well.