Thursday, February 12, 2009

It's All Good

Yesssirrreee! The surgery is done and everything is A-OK!
The whole experience was soooo lovely.
Everyone took such wonderful care of me. I felt like I floated into surgery and I tried to remember the operating room but once they brought me in I saw the lights on the ceiling and that's all I remember. No one else in the room except the guy that wheeled me in. The CRNA was one I'd known well from my L&D days. She's great! And the surgeon was wonderful too. Even one of my patients ended up doing my H&P. I didn't have ANY nausea or nastiness. In fact, I reacted to the IV morphine so much that I kept forgetting to breathe! My surgery started around 11:45AM and I woke up at about 5:00PM annoyed that that machine kept beeping at me. I'd crack my eyes open and noticed a big ZERO on there indicating I hadn't taken a breath for the last 24 seconds. And I had no desire to breathe either. It was a weird, calm feeling. I totally didn't care. I was quite comfortable. Mom kept feeding me ice chips because everytime I took some in the O2 monitor would climb back up over 90%. It was after 6PM that they could bring me to my room with the apnea episodes finally leaving me. The didn't let me sleep much--vitals were about every 3 hours. Plus I had to sit up to sleep--hard to do, but with drugs on board I was sort of unable to do much else. Plus I was tied down with these SED boots pumping up on my calves and the IV and machine making it drip. Having to call to ask to go the bathroom wasn't fun. They just sit outside the door and wait for me to finish. And if I take a bit too long...They barge in and ask if I'm alright! Right now, I feel like someone has kicked me in the throat. They glued it shut--no stitches or steri-strips. Not even a bandage. Of course the mass was not cancerous. Yay! But the doctor said it was only the size of a grape. I wonder why the radiology tech measured 2.5 x 5 cm in October?? They said they can vary in size, going up and down, but that seems like a big overestimation to me. Either way, it's over and I'm glad about that. Now I hope the TFTs (thyroid function tests) will be normal. I go to see the doctor in 2 weeks to see how things are healing, etc. I sure will enjoy this time to recover. Talking is hard to do but the doctor said I can talk--just not all day long.
I recieved lots of messages by phone and email as well as regular ol' fashioned visits too. My friends are the GREATEST!
Thank you all for your love and support.
Here's a picture of my crazy-glued incision:


Interesting, huh? OK, maybe gross to some of you, but I never expected to wake up with a glued-shut incision! I think it's cool!
T was a total trooper too. I told him the day before the event that the next day mama would be going to the hospital so that a bubble could be removed from my neck. He asked if there would be any pain or shots. I assured him they were going to give me good medicine with a breathing machine just like the one you use when you can't breathe so well (his asthma nebulizer treatments). He was fine with that. And so my mom attended to me while T was at school. When I was out of the recovery room, mom went to pick up T from after-school care. They went out for his choice dinner--Pizza! And then he slept in his big boy bed without any problems or whining. Mom was ready to bring him in for a visit if he was upset. But he was quite happy to have his day go the "normal" way--with his Oma in my place. He said to mom, "Well, if Mama gets another bubble, and another bubble and another bubble, everything will be OK." As long as his routine doesn't change, he's all good with that. But there can't be any shots involved.

1 comment:

Billy said...

Glad all's well :-)