I started this a number of days ago.  I came back 4 times.  I’m not having a very good time still but want to finish this post so I can get on to the next step in life.

Pain and I are not friends.  Sick and puking is not my friend either. You guessed it, this is not about poker. I am recuperating after having bladder prolapse surgery.  Some of it is probably funny.  When I read this three or four years from now I may LMAO.  Right now I’m still in the virtual realm of pain pills and running out of steam faster than I would like. I sleep a lot…just sayin…

I have a constant companion which I’m sick of…Foley!  I get to say goodbye to Foley on Thursday somewhere around 11ish a.m. I do not know if I will be required to sit at my surgeon’s office to see if I can pee normally or they will just boot me out the door, but I’m so ready for that moment of parting.

Here’s how the whole thing went down.  A drive into St. Rose Hospital Sienna Campus started at 3:45 AM on the 6th.  I headed upstairs to the same-day-surgical- center on floor 2 and got checked in.  After having my blood work done on Monday, the 3rd, I went home with a wrist band that had to stay on until my discharge from the hospital.  After checking in, they gave me another wrist band, and I waited, I was the first one in the waiting area but they slowly started to filter in…singles, couples, one couple with a little girl that was about 8 or 9.  I couldn’t help but wonder what their stories were, and how each was approaching what was about to happen to them.  I wasn’t sure how I was approaching what was about to happen to me.

The mind. What a powerful tool if you can control it.

I was close to the last person to get called into the back by a perky little, overweight, about-my-age nurse named Bonnie. Bonnie was great.  How she could find a spot on the top of my forearm that had a vein without digging up chunks of flesh was a pure miracle IMHO. But that came after swabbing down my armpits, groin area, neck, under-the-breasts, with some thick blue cloths that came in a sealed package — and of course, putting on my new outfit that stayed on for the next three days. The gown that tied in the back. And I got another wrist band…bright red “ALLERGIES!”

Bonnie gave me a pair of shimmery looking knee-hi stockings that had little slots under the toes so I could stick my toes out if I wanted and measured me for those dynamic looking pneumatic stockings that I would wear for the next two days.

Bonnie asked me 3,000,000 questions at least. What drugs did I take, when, OTC, prescription, did I shower and not use lotion (poor dry skin), what surgeries did I have previously, what year, where, allergies, and on and on and on.  I stressed to everyone that I have one kidney “PLEASE BE CAREFUL!”

Then my anesthesiologist came in.  Can’t tell you how relieved I was that it wasn’t the one I used to deal to at The Mirage. (I admit to having a few nightmares about his playing poker all night, losing — $75/$150 7 card stud — and then being his early patient). I believe my guy’s name is Dave.  We visited about a number of things.  I told him I always come out of surgery puking. He said he thought it was because of the gas they give you to take you down and he wouldn’t give me that and he would also give me something in the IV that would help.  I told him I had one kidney.  “Just in case my surgeon gets a dazed look when he realizes there is no urine trickling into the bladder from my right ureter (which isn’t), please remind him.”

We laughed. But my surgeon had already stressed the fact that it was good he knew about it beforehand otherwise he would be opening up my abdomen to see what the problem was.

After Dave left, Bonnie continued with a lively little chatter until Carla, my surgeon’s surgical nurse arrived.  By now it was 7:20ish and I had been in the facility for over two hours.  I know…exhausting, right?  Carla told me that Dr. Hsieh would be in shortly and we would put on our blue party hats.

Oh my! I hope to never get one of those again.

Dr. Hsieh came in and noted a half a million things on the charts and talked to me for a few minutes…and then…just like blast off — off we went. The party wouldn’t start without me.

You have to love those nurses and attendants that bring you heated blankets when you feel like you’re going to shiver your ass right off and watch it twitch on the floor before your eyes.  Thank you!

The lights went out before I knew it and I woke up in incredible, horrible pain.  Not where I would think the pain should be though.  It was in my left glute, right next to my spine, felt like there was a massive pinch going on. The pain was unbearable.  The nurse gave me a 10MG percocette – which had to be taken with food (in my case) or I would puke.  I got saltine crackers.  My mouth was so dry I almost choked on them — even with gulps of water.  Nothing changed.  I was crying by now.  She came back and gave me 4 different blasts of morphine through the iv over about a 30-40 minute time period.  I tried turning and moving but nothing helped.  PAIN!!!  Out like a light.  I woke up and felt wonderful.  I was ready to get up and start dancing, so relieved that this was going to be so easy.

WAKE UP!

That euphoria lasted about two hours and it all went downhill from there. I was sick, get out that little puke bucket baby.

One thing I hate about hospitals, they want you to take their meds. I take Nexium 40MG for gerd.  Nope, they gave me pepcid twice a day intravenously.  I had tried pepcid long ago, it does nothing.  I burp and schlurp and never seem to calm the upset stomach thing.  That, I believe was part of the problem.  The other was a reaction to the morphine and I was just frigging miserable.  My bowels were not happy, they gave me regulen intravenously to soften the stool and keep everything moving .

The worst part of it is that everything in the area of the surgery all affects another body part.  They stuffed over 2 feet of gauze into the vagina after surgery, there’s body swelling, fluids are trying to sluff, the mesh is there somewhere, the foley has an inflatable ball on it inside your bladder to keep in in place, and it is all about the bladder but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like your whole pelvic floor is what’s left over after an explosion that rips the middle out of you.  Everything was uncomfortable. But there were no mega-blasts of pain after the initial wakening.  I was just sick.

The following day I could have been discharged but they would have had to roll my bed outside and kicked me to the curb.  I was still SICK!  Intravenously I was receiving all kinds of things, including an antibiotic.  All of them guaranteed to constipate you, give you a headache, and a few other wonderful things.

My surgeon came in early evening and said he was keeping me for the second night’s stay in the hospital. Good.  I would never have made the hour and a half drive to home. I couldn’t eat, I needed to have something to take pain meds with and it all kind of gagged out somewhere in my head.  Morphine was still on call and I had it about every 4 hours.

I got up and trekked down the hall a number of times with my IV pole leading the way.  Still had the compression stockings on that kept pulsing while I was in bed, and all the trimmings.  I didn’t need to go to the bathroom because foley took care of it but my bowel kept telling me I had to go.  LIAR!

I tried to eat once and managed to puke it up an hour later.  They were giving me anti-nausea medication too.

That night I climbed out of bed close to 5 times, in pain, gagging, and each time I stood up, an alarm went off.  The nurses had armed my bed.  They would run in, “Where you going Miss Linda?”

“I have to get out of here.”

Yeah, right.  Right back to bed I went.  Somewhere close to morning they gave me another shot of something through the IV and I slept. When I woke up it was better.  Not good, but better.

I went home later that afternoon, foley taped to my leg, and started to recuperate.  On Thursday, one week after surgery, I went to Vegas to lose Foley, they poured cold water into my bladder to make sure I could pee normally, checked to see if I had a mesh sticker (nope) and I went home again.

On Friday I knew I had a UTI.  Pain, pain, pain.  I had planned ahead for this and had a scrip and test strip at home.  Sure enough, the test strip lit up in vivid colors so I started Cipro for the UTI.  Early Saturday morning I had bright, red blood seeping vaginally, almost like the beginning of a period.  Discharge was expected, stitches working out were expected, but not bright red blood 9 days after surgery.

I had quite a bit of lower abdominal pain also that came and went in stages. I coasted through Saturday (this stuff always happens on the weekend when the dr.’s office is closed). My whole attitude and emotion went to dark and ugly by late afternoon on Sunday.  I had my son drive me to St. Rose hospital (where I had the surgery) that night and hit the ER.

After blood tests, urine sample, and an abdominal catscan, the ER dr. told me I had a massive hematoma in the abdomen.  I was admitted after saying goodbye to my son and crying my eyes out.  Yuppers…I’m a whiner…Yuppers, I feel sorry for myself.

In ER I got into a bed, more IVs, more blood drawn, blah, blah, blah.  Thank God they gave me drugs.  I tried to sleep through most of it.  After 4-5 hours, they pulled my bed out into the hallway – along with other beds – and pulled a curtain around me.  I slept, I played the fake game with my bowel bluffing me thinking I had to go to the bathroom, I listened to people coming in, nurses, and the whole confusion of what happens in ER at the hospital.  What a sad place.

I was waiting to be admitted – a room had to open first – and that finally happened around 2PM after arriving there at 10ish PM.

The room was wonderful.  All alone.  Private bath.  Fourth floor with a view over Vegas if you felt like looking.  I slept as much as possible again.  My dr. came in late Monday evening.  He said hematomas are common in these surgeries, most begin draining immediately.  In my case, I had a lot of bleeding on the left side and they had packed it full of chemicals (also part of the problem with the pain coming out of surgery and the angle my body was in during surgery) to stop the bleeding.

He said the body would heal itself, it would take some time.  They could go in with a needle and try to drain it, they could make it worse and cause more bleeding.  NO THANKS! I spent the night.  If my labs came in good and my hemoglobin was up the following morning, I would be able to go home.

I got to go home on Tuesday.  Still have the bleeding although it is tapering off.  Still have the abdominal pain periodically but hopefully it will be gone soon.  I still have drugs I can take to help with the pain but I’m hoping to lose those soon too.

Today I have an appointment with my primary care dr. here in Pahrump.  Next Wednesday I have an appointment with my surgeon in Vegas. After the 15th day out, I’ve started to improve bit by bit.  I’m going to live.  I go out and walk the property a couple of times a day and do a few things around the house, but not much.  Thankfully my son Dan is here with me and he takes care of most of it…and Scout.

One person I need to mention.  My buddette Sylvia Hart.  God bless her through a thousand lifetimes.  She came out and spent the night so we could leave at 3 AM the day of the surgery and she could deliver me.  She gave me a ride home from the hospital.  After I went back in, she brought me home again.  She called me daily.  She came to see me, she didn’t even run out of the room once when I was gagging in a puke pan.  What a wonderful, gracious spirit she is.  I am truly blessed.

I feel like I’ve been in a long, dark tunnel the last two weeks, but it’s starting to open up to a walk in the desert and sunshine.

 

P.S.  I have bruising in the pelvic area.  My sis, bless her heart, says that’s where they put their feet.  It feels that way.