Ow! Ow! Ow!
No, that’s not me after surgery. That’s me, at home, reading Jilbur and Mindy’s posts and laughing so hard my stitches threaten to let go. *wiping tears*
Tis true! I’m home! And I owe my girlfriends many thanks and trinkets of appreciation, for not only did they hold down the fort and make me sound ever so much more heroic than I actually am, but they also had a care package waiting for me upon my return home (damn, they work fast!) and I am just about the luckiest uterus-less lady in the world, I think. So there. If you simply must have all your reproductive organs ripped out, this is definitely the way to have it done. So, first: a round of applause for Mindy and Jilbur, please!! Yeah!
Next: I am still a bit woozy and whiney, so I will regale you only with a few pertinent highlights for now, and save the rest for a later time, I think. But you’ve all been so wonderful to hang about and wait for updates, I have to share just a little bit….
1) I actually had an argument with one of the intake nurses, while in pre-op, because she wanted me to sign a “sterilization authorization” release. Not a big deal, right? Except that my last surgery was an endometrial ablation and tubal ligation (say it five times fast). In other words, I’ve already been sterilized. She still wanted me to sign the form. I felt rather strongly that this is how people end up leaving the hospital with the wrong foot missing. We were at an impasse, and finally we were saved by a smarter nurse (and I didn’t have to sign).
2) My anesthesiologist? So cute! I wanted to pinch him. All over. He wanted to talk about my nausea tendencies after surgery… I wanted to squeeeeeeeze him. My friend who was with me on surgery day asked me if I thought I’d seen a wedding ring, and I replied that I hadn’t noticed, but that after the guy knocks me out and watches them pull out several misbehaving organs, it seeemed doubtful that a date would be in our future. Alas.
3) I remember NOTHING from post-op other than my doctor about an inch from my face saying very slowly “NO CANCER” (that was at my request), and a lot of “9, 9, 9!” (They ask you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, and apparently I wasn’t all that happy with the morphine to begin with.)
4) The hospital where I had my surgery has the nicest nursing staff in the world, and the worst food. To wit: one nurse, after waking me out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night because she had to take my vitals, gave me a back rub (a good one, too!) to help me get back to sleep. However, the three identical “clear liquid” trays I was served (despite Mindy’s sound advice, it took me a while to get those toots going) were uniformly frightening. Chicken broth or beef broth… didn’t matter… they were both just dirty-looking salty water. And yellow jello??? Who eats yellow jello? And once I’d graduated to solid food… well… I wished I hadn’t. Ick.
5) There is no hormone patch in the world that will stop your emotions from taking a roller coaster ride. What Jilbur did not tell you about my first trek on two feet was that they got me up and I started to sob, and continued to do so until they put me back to bed. I have no idea why. And the two nurses walking me acted like it was perfectly normal.
6) My doctor, the one who had the habit of forgetting who I was or why I was there? Will now be granted sainthood. She was supposed to come by around 5 last night to discharge me… and as things usually go, it got later and later and now there was a question of who would come get me and when, and she was still willing to discharge me if I could make arrangements, but she discovered that my prescriptions needed to be filled that night because the floor nurses wouldn’t be allowed to give me enough medicine to last til the next day. I then discovered that I hadn’t brought my wallet, and the prospect of having to send a friend to fill a prescription for me when it was now getting to be quite late and everything… well… I may have gotten a little frantic. My doctor patted my arm, told me to sit tight, and said she’d be right back. She returned with my prescriptions. Which she’d just driven to the pharmacy to fill, and paid for herself. She told me to pay her back at my post-op appointment but not to worry my head about it. Nice, huh?
Alright, that is all for now, as I am still quite tired and cranky and drugged. I am soooooo glad to be home in my own bed. And I am sending out huge gigantic thank-yous to Mindy and Jilbur for being such amazing hostesses in my absence… when I am no longer loopy I will come up with a more appropriate thank-you, but for right now you’ll just have to settle for a teary “I LOOOOOOVE YOU GUUUUYS!!!”
Tussling Over the Convalescent
OK, Jilbur, that does it. I was going to comment on your entry, but since you are being sooooo petty, I am just going to make it into a post! Humph.
I am very glad indeed to hear that Mir is chipper. I did let her know before her operation that I felt much better than I ever believed possible after each of my c-sections, and that her fears were probably worse than the reality. Having said that, heed my warning: do not stretch out the intervals between pain medication dosages. Payback is a bitch.
Reading Jilbur’s comment about Mir being out of bed already, I remembered all the cruel feats they expect you to perform after abdominal surgery. For one, they insist you get up and walk that very day, if only to the door and back. They try like hell to make you go further, but a loop to the door and back pretty much lets the nurse check that one off. For another, they will not let you have any kind of solid food until you can demonstrate resumption of peristalsis.
That’s right, you must fart for your supper. To quote Mir, you’re welcome.
The first time I heard this particular request, I was flabbergasted, and then amused. I finally asked a nurse why in blue blazes (as it were) eveyone wanted to know if I was farty, and she calmly informed me that once I was tooting again, they could be sure that my digestive system was operational and could tolerate an overcooked chicken breast and an oatmeal cookie.
So, Mir, fart away, It’s likely to be the last time you’ll get to do it, boast about it, and be rewarded with food for your efforts.
Unless of course, you decide to meet up with Jibur and me in the fall! We’ll think up all kinds of fun feats and rewards!
Data! we want data!
If this were my blog, I’d go on a rant about the incredibly annoying day I’ve just finished up on, but as I am supposed to be on my best behavior, I’ll just say that here is the info that I would have posted three hours ago if I didn’t instead have to play a maddening game of “Hurry Up And Wait” with my beloved, frequently enriched-by-me Firestone dealership:
At about 3PM EST, I phoned Mir in her room and let me tell you, I was shocked, just shocked. She sounded …
GREAT! I haven’t been this surprised since after labor when they put my baby on my belly, and it actually looked like a baby and not like one of those aliens in the Weekly World News.
Anyway, it was a very brief convo because her pal was visiting, but my goodness, she’s no cheap narcotics date, this girl: she sounded as alert on Vicodin as she would have been after a triple-double cappucino on a Sunday morning.
And apart from the knowledge that she was no longer actually on an operating table, I got little else in the way of detailed info except: she’s already had a little walk down the hall, even (next stop: the surgical-convalescent Olympics!), and that her doc said they thought that the state of her previous interior looked unmenacing. Innocuous. I don’t know–I’m just a guest-blogger; fill in the good-news adjective of your choice.
Mindy, I’m two up on you, girl. Not that I’m counting …
Whew!
Pant, pant… I am here at last, and as usual, Jilbur is a bit quicker than I am. Curse you and your New England ways!!
I am soooo relieved to hear that Mir has come though OK, and that she so far does not appear to have a wrench or anything else left behind where it doesn’t belong. We can only hope that her doctors read this article as well before starting in on her…
Everybody breathe …
I just got off the phone with the lead nurse on Mir’s floor: she’s in her room, sleeping. So–that’s the end of Chapter 1 in the gripping saga, How I Went To The Hospital and All My Neurotic Friends Showed Me How Much They Love Me.
So far so good …
Jilbur here with the first Mir status update!
I got antsy and didn’t wait for the email Mir told me expect, and yes, you can expect me to be that kind of guest blogger … Anyway, I phoned the hospital myself, and as of now (around 3PM EST) she’s still in recovery–but I’ll follow up within the next hour or two to report that she’s safely in her room!
And! Nothing very entertaining! on this! guest blog entry! But stay tuned! I’d like Mindy and me to be able to truthfully say that we drove Mir’s stats up while she was gone, because I’m certain that any increase in traffic will stay with her upon her return; so everyone do your part and refresh! refresh! refresh! Do I sound like Dr. Bronners yet! Okay!
Be right back….
Well boys and girls, I’m off to the hospital. I should be back online by Thursday or so. In the meantime, I’ve handed keys over to Jilbur and Mindy, so that they can pick up the mail and water the plants and let you know I’m alive… stuff like that.
Let me just leave you with these parting words: reproductive organs? We don’t need no steenkin’ reproductive organs….
Fickle
I was riding high on the… uhhh… high (high high high!) of my clean house yesterday as I prepared for an evening of pizza and sympathy with a few friends. My last supper. Courtesy of Pizza Hut. I should just move into a trailer and be done with the facade, I know. Anyway. I was feeling good.
Six friends had been invited. In the end, one made it. Well, that’s okay. Other people have lives, too (so I hear), so I was not to be deterred from my high! Alright! Excellent friend, you and me, baybeeeee! Let’s eat some pizza and watch a really bad horror film! Okay! Rock on!
We had a good time.
About halfway through the movie the ex and my children called, having landed safely in ex-law land slightly earlier that evening. Monkey got on the phone first:
Me: Hey baby! Where are you?
Him: I’m fine.
Me: No, silly, not how are you, where are you?
Him: I’m at Grammie’s!
Me: No way!
Him: Yes! And I had CAKE!
Me: No!
Him: Yes! And it was CHOKLIT! And I ate it all!
Me: Mmmmm, that sounds yummy.
Him: ByebyeIwuvyou.
Me: I love you too! Are you done talking to me?
Him: [already gone]
Oooooookay. Well, at least he said he loved me. Monkey was sent to fetch Chickadee, and after several agonizing minutes of small talk with the ex I suggested that perhaps he needed to go extract her from whatever she was doing so that I could speak with her. Finally she came to the phone.
Me: Hey baby, how are–
Her: MAMA! Grammie made me a new blanket and it has my name on it and she also made one for S [girl cousin of the same age] with her name and so I grabbed S’s blanket and said “Oh, this is MY blanket” and S laughed so hard she fell over!!
Me: Wow. Sounds like you and S are back to your regular stint as Frick and Frack.
Her: [sounding a bit worried, and annoyed that I didn’t get it] No, Mama, it’s okay, S thought it was funny. She laughed. Really hard! I didn’t do anything wrong!
Me: Oh sweetie, I didn’t mean you did anything wrong! I just meant you and S are like sisters when you get together, and I think it’s great you love each other so much.
Her: Oh. Okay. ByebyeIloveyou!
[sound of phone clattering to the ground]
Well. I’m glad they’re having a good time. And I’m sure the novelty will wear off after a week and they might even be glad to come home to me next weekend.
So my friend and I finished watching our movie and eating cookies, and we said our goodbyes and she went home. In retrospect, it may not have been my brightest idea ever to eat supreme pizza so close to having had a tummy bug. Live and learn. I went upstairs and unwrapped my brand new bottle of Pepto. I gave it a good shake (per package directions).
The lid flew off. In my freshly. cleaned. bathroom. I’d say half a bottle of Pepto is about… oh… six gallons?
Fortunately, after a few hours of major blood and guts on film, even with a slightly upset stomach I had to giggle a little while cleaning up the splattered slaughter of the Pink Monster.
I’m telling ya… someone is trying to make tomorrow look good in comparison. And I really wish they would stop already.
Guest with the Rest
Have you visited the most mouth-watering blog in the blogosphere yet?
If you said yes, gold star! If you said no, look very ashamed, or I will bop you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
While Bakerina is away, the mice are not so much playing as having a party to end all parties. I can barely keep up. But I did wander over and post a guest entry this afternoon, just cuz Bakerina was silly enough to grant me access. And because I’m so pleased that I finally finished cleaning the house. And because I don’t want to go tend to any of the other million things I should be doing.
Check it out, won’t you?
Saturday: Cleaning Dos and Don’ts
1) Don’t wait until facing major surgery to clean your microwave. Trust me on this one.
2) Do pour bleach in all the toilet bowls to soak for a while.
3) Don’t assume that surfaces above head-level do not accumulate dust just because you can’t see them.
4) Do enlist the children’s help in tidying up their messes.
5) Don’t forget to check their work before they leave on vacation.
6) Do blame yourself for not being more specific. Do say, “Please tidy up the playroom.” Also remember to say, “And that does not mean just pick up all the crap and shove it on the shelves or kick it to the perimeter.”
7) Don’t forget about the bleach in the toilet bowls before adding cleanser unless you have a deep fondness for ammonia fumes.
8) Do pick up all floor detritus before vacuuming.
9) Don’t bother picking up tiny little pieces of annoying toys that you hate, anyway. (Ooops!)
10) Do take breaks often; then when you feel like you’re not accomplishing anything, at least you have an excuse.
11) Don’t buy “freshly scented” abrasive cleaners thinking they will smell any better. “Green Apple” scented Lysol Tub and Tile cleanser is just as noxious as the original–perhaps moreso.
12) Do take the garbage out.
13) Don’t notice how grody the trash can is… you have enough other stuff to do today. Put a clean bag in and call it good.
14) Do feel free to remove to the basement/garage/closet anything that needs to be put in a proper place, someday, but not right this second.
15) Don’t worry about getting everything done; prioritize and do what you can.
16) Do finish anything that will either drive you batshit if left undone or you wouldn’t feel comfortable asking someone else to do for you during your convalescence.