Week 1

Week 1 after surgery

Sheer Hell In Time

Week 1 was not the stuff dreams are made of. Hell, I barely remember the first 3 days except that apparently I asked (and text) allot of people to “please come kill me”. My sister Julie said I told her “If you smother me with my pillow I will give you my car”…I’m still here, but possibly when I had the beamer, the offer might have looked better to her.

When you’re “Out of it” you miss many conversations. One in particular would have been good to know. Every hour it seemed I was ask by some nurse “Have you passed gas?” This was starting to get quite annoying since I’m a pretty private person about such things. I’ve never been a “gassy gal” in the past so I had no idea what the hell was going on. At some point either my Sister Julie (or Jamie such as my memory is) said that they blew my stomach up with gas to get to the proper organs. Apparently they want it to come back out. I just thought they were getting rather personal.

Then there was the anesthesia…the stuff dreams are made of. I had a long conversation about asthma and my negative reaction to the dreaded anesthesia with my own anesthesiologist the night before surgery. He was a rather sympathetic chap who seemed to get the picture. When I arrived, the nurse said “I have the strangest cocktail waiting for you”. Of course I replied “I don’t drink”… while she handed me no less than 21 pills and told me to chuck them all down. I don’t do well with pills so it wasn’t a simple task. I managed to get them down as I was tossed to the gurney.

Then there was the pain medicine. At another episode of “big pink bucket fun” I heard the Nurse say “I’ve never seen anything like her”…”She can’t take anything we give her for pain”. Finally, and THANK GOD, my sister mentioned one pain medicine with some freakin Irish Leprechaun name like “Finnigan” (without narcotics) and the pink bucket was gone for damn good.

I am happy to report that as of today (starting week 2) I can walk about a block and a half without much of a grimace, hanging onto Mike’s arm like a vice clamp and as white as a sheet, I can dry my own hair standing up…and I can pick up virtually anything off the floor with my toes (although the water bottle cap was very cruel). I have read 6 books, watched 3 mini series along with something called “Iron Chef” until I truly believe I might try to cook something…Alas, I hard boiled some eggs today and they were soft boiled after I peeled them. I figure by week 3 I’ll be ready for egg salad!

Thank you all for your cards, texts, calls and good wishes.