In Recovery

I'm on vicodin so please excuse any misspellings or grammar mistakes!  I might ramble too.

I had my exploratory laproscopy and HSG yesterday.  I was pretty nervous beforehand.  I've had surgery three other times in my life;  Tonsils removed when I was 5, wisdom teeth at 13, and major jaw surgery at 15. Jaw surgery was obviously the worst of any of them since I had to have my jaw wired shut for six weeks afterwards and I have two metal plates installed.  Even though that was tough it's been a really long time since my last surgery and I don't remember much about the day of or the days immediately following it.  I've had plenty of experience in waiting rooms while family is under the knife, but not of being the patient myself in awhile.

Thursday was my last day at work until Tuesday (although I'm thinking of calling in sick that day).  Only three of my work friends know everything that Andy and I have been through this year, I've even chosen not to tell my new boss at this point.  I walk with Christine every day on our morning break so I probably confide in her more than anyone else.  On Thursday she surprised me with this homemade card:

Isn't is beautiful?  It was also exactly the words I needed to hear!  Being anxious about my surgery wasn't doing anyone any good, let alone myself.  So I tried to relax as much as possible.  It's tough, but having a great friend remind me to trust in God helped a lot.

Yesterday morning we were up early and made it to the area of the hospital 30 minutes early.  I noticed an Einstein's Bagels nearby so Andy and I stopped to get him some breakfast.  I was on a no food or liquid diet as of midnight so it was difficult to sit in there and watch Andy eat his yummy bagel sandwich and drink his OJ, but I'm glad we had time to stop for his sake!  We got to the hospital at 10am and then got me registered and back to a preop room very quickly.  I got changed into the lovely gown and slipper socks, then they added my bracelets, blood pressure cuff, and heart/breathing monitors.  

Don't I look comfy?

They quickly came and and gave me my IV, too.  I really hate IVs!  I think that was the worst part of the whole morning for me.  They gave me a numbing shot before they inserted it into my left top forearm but I don't think it did much good.  That sucker hurts!  The nurse putting it in almost blew my vein too, but thankfully it held.  I think I would of cried if she had to redo it!  Then we waited...and waited...and waited some more...the nurse and anesthesiologist came in to talk to us a few different times.   My RE was running late getting to the hospital and there was one surgery in front of me.  So while I was scheduled for surgery at noon I didn't actually go to the operating room until almost 2pm.  

Andy left to go have lunch with his best friend Andrew while I was in surgery.  I'm really glad he got to do that since I know how much it sucks waiting for your loved one while they're being operated on.  He says that he got back to the hospital about 30 minutes before my RE came to talk to him.  The RE found mild endometriosis on the outside of my uterus and two 1cm cysts on my right ovary.  The endometriosis and one of the cysts were completely removed.  The other cyst was connected really closely to the blood supply to the ovary so my RE did not feel comfortable trying to remove it.  That cyst was popped and drained.  

I'm not sure how long it took for me to wake up in recovery.  I felt a little nauseous so I was given some IV drugs for that and finally some water.  My throat was little sore from the breathing tube so the water felt so good.  Andy was brought back pretty quickly to keep me company.  I got to get up and go to the bathroom, since peeing on your own is one of the necessities before they'll let you go home.  I was surprised at how quickly I was released!  I think about 5:30pm we got to head home.  I wore male large pajama bottoms tied loosely and a baggy tshirt which was pretty comfortable all considering.  I had brought a pillow to put between me and the seatbelt, but that was too big.  So I put Andy's sweatshirt folded up inbetween my abdomen and the seatbelt.  That worked perfectly.     

It took us about an hour to get home, which was pretty impressive for rush hour traffic!  I took my two vicodin as soon as I got home.  Andy got me situated on the couch and made me two things of easy mac, then I had some chocolate pudding.  The vicodin seems to make me feel wide awake for two to three hours after taking it, then I feel like passing out until my next dose is due.  I read plenty of other people's stories so I have been taking my pain meds every four hours on the dot.  I've heard that once the pain gets bad it's really difficult to get it under control. 

I laid down in bed at about 9pm last night and stayed there for the most part until 11am.  Every four hours I got up to get my meds, pee, and move around.  I have to keep the upper half of my body elevated so the excess gas can escape more easily.  If I lay all the way down my right shoulder begins to hurt badly due to the excess gas pushing on my diaphragm which apparently connects to shoulder nerves.  I think I only slept for about an hour and a half at a time throughout the night.  I spent a lot of time playing on my iPhone and watching rented tv shows on it.  Poor Andy slept on the couch as a result.  

All in all I feel pretty good.  Definitely sore and uncomfortable.  I have an incision in my belly button and one above my bikini line.  They're both covered by a plastic band-aide which should stay on for a day or two.  The stitches will eventually dissolve on their own.  Right now, despite the discomfort, I'm really glad we chose to have the surgery before beginning treamtents.  We'll never know for sure if the endometriosis and cysts were what was causing our difficulty conceiving, but they weren't helping!  I feel so much more optimistic about our chances now!