The Surgery: A Retrospective.

Since today is the first day I feel clear-headed enough to really tell you how it went (aside from a two-line email that some of you have been getting), I think it's time to record this for posterity.

Preparations - Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Wednesday night, I was a nervous wreck. I had made up a checklist of all the things I had to do and set about getting them done. The one moment when I felt like I was myself was when I created the fake movie poster to upload to the blog -- the rest of the time, I was simply going through the motions.

I think the most emotional part for me was taking off my jewelry. My wedding ring had not been off my finger since the day Hubby first put it there ten years ago, so I asked him to take it off. (I didn't want to be the one to do it.) I put it all in a zippy-bag and left it on a bookshelf in his office, then put my fully-packed "just in case" backpack on a chair in the kitchen. Hubby commented on how organized I was, and I told him that I was actually losing my mind and just following a list.

I ate a ginger snap at about 10:00 pm, checked to make sure my comfy clothes were all laid out for the morning, and then went to bed. And, somehow, I got to sleep.

Pre-Surgery Jitters - Thursday, May 25, 2006

I have never been very good at hospitals, and I'm especially bad when it comes to shiny, pointy things that breach my skin. People talk about fearing the anaesthesia and their loss of control when it comes to surgery, but that's never it with me. It's the shiny pointy things.

Walking into St. Joe's, I could feel the tears starting to leak out of the corners of my eyes. I wasn't actually "crying" -- more like just leaking stress. I tried to pause in the lobby to look at a very cool piece of artwork, when Hubby called me that we were going to lose the elevator. We went up to the Day Surgery Department on the fourth floor and a moment later I was staring at a door marked "Patients Only". I must have looked panicked, because the nurse assured me she'd come get Hubby once I was settled in. So I reluctantly followed her.

Happiness is a Warm Blanket: 8:30 AM

Nurse Betty (her real name) set me up in a curtained chamber with my hospital fashions to put on. I was told I could keep my socks, which thrilled me to the core. Somehow keeping a scrap of my own clothing made me feel better. Once I was dressed, she came back and asked questions ("What did you eat last? ... Did you take your prescription this morning?" and my eyes started leaking again. She said she had to give me a tiny needle in the stomach, a blood thinner to prevent clots. I told her I was scared, that I'm bad with needles, and that my veins are really bad, especially when I'd been fasting. I think she thought I might've been trying to talk my way out of it, because she started to say she had to do it. I quickly jumped in with, "No, I'm not saying don't give it to me, I'm just letting you know why I'm staring intently at the ceiling."

After that was over with (it was a teeny thing -- I looked at it afterwards), she shaved one little hair off my stomach. Then she said she had something that would help get my veins ready for the IV. To my delight, Betty came back with a warm blanket to wrap me up in. (I brightened up considerably when under my warm blanket.) Nurse Betty also told me that when I got a chance to talk to the anaesthesiologist, to tell him about my "IV problem" and that he'd probably be able to give me something to help. Since she was grinning, I wondered what it was. Then she went to get Hubby, and I nestled down in my warm blanket.

Hubby came in and, after tormenting me for about ten minutes about "What does this button do?" on everything from the wall behind me to the gurney I was laying on, I ordered him to get down to business and do his "job". At this point of the story, a lot of you are probably going to be surprised, but no one who really knows me will be. He took out his camera and started taking the pictures I was asking for. (How could I scrapbook this episode of my life without pictures? It was bad enough that they took my notebook and watch away.) After taking a few shots, he put the camera away and we waited.

I realized it was already 9:10 AM and I started getting nervous all over again. At that moment, Dr. M, the surgeon, came in, all dressed in his surgery-wear. I made a lame comment about his surgery hat, never having seen him with it before, and we just talked a bit about the surgery. He reminded me that there was a good chance he wouldn't be able to do the "easy" surgery, the laparascopic one, because I'd had some pretty serious gallbladder attacks and there would be damage from that which could interfere. (He was nice enough not to say it, but I also knew from my research that my weight would play a role, as well.) I told him that I trusted his judgement, and that ultimately, I just wanted the thing gone. If we could beam it out without using shiny, pointy things, I'd be happier, but hey.

He left, Hubby commented on how young he was (ie younger than Hubby), and Cathy (who spends all day running around with gurneys) came in to get me. "Oh!" she said, "You don't have your hat on yet!" So she got me my hat, shook her head in disbelief as I hammed it up for one last picture, then Hubby hugged me and we were moving. Hubby followed as far as he could, and I told Cathy to watch him with all the buttons, and then we turned a corner and he was gone.

Heading Under - 9:20 AM

Cathy left me in a line-up of gurneys in the hallway outside the operating room, which felt oddly like the toll-gate on the bridge, and I suddenly flashed back to being in the same position almost thirty years ago, waiting to have my tonsils removed. They tell me that with renovations to the hospital, it probably wasn't the same OR, but the ceilings looked the same and the hallway looked the same, so that was enough to do it.

I think they must have written on my chart "bring warm blanket if looking like she might bolt", because Lynn came along with a fresh, toasty blankie. As she tucked it under my chin, she explained in her British accent that she had her mask on because she had a bit of a cold and I told her I appreciated that, and was glad that she wasn't going to hold me up, as they'd already taken all my possessions away. (When I'm nervous, the first thing to go is my sense of humour, so bear with me.) Then she went to see if the room was ready yet, and Dr. C, the anaesthesiologist came along to chat. One thing about those masks -- they really bring out the eyes, and his were incredible - really caring and expressive. Anyway, I explained to him about my feelings about needles and that I would try really hard not to be difficult, but that my veins were wimpy and I was really just a big chicken. He nodded, seemed to smile under his mask, and said, "I'll give you some nitrous oxide."

They wheeled me into the OR and my gaze naturally landed, not on the huge lights overhead, or the table, but on the tray of shiny pointy things in the corner. I told Lynn I wasn't going to look at that anymore, and she agreed that that was probably a good idea. They had me scoot over onto the operating table under my own power, which was a relief to me. (When you're heavy, and you hate inconveniencing people, the thought of others having to physically lift you is not a pleasant one.)

Once I was on, they had me move a centimetre to the left (that operating table is *really* narrow), and then Dr. C. handed me the mask of nitrous oxide. I told them that I was glad I was getting to try laughing gas, as my sister the dentist didn't have any for me at her office. They asked me a bit about Dr. Munchkin, and I put in a plug for her practice as I felt the giggles welling up inside of me. I commented on how funny it was, that the gas actually made me laugh, and that fact alone was also making me laugh (it went straight to my head, I tell ya), and I said I sounded like I was talking after helium. I asked them if I sounded funny to them. Dr. C and Lynn chuckled and one of them said, "No, dear -- that's all you."

Then I was making a fist and Dr. C. was swabbing my hand with alcohol, and I knew the IV was coming. I asked him if he'd found a vein and he said he was pretty sure he had one that would cooperate, and then Lynn leaned right over me and started talking about how the mosquitoes in the operating room were really bad this year. I remember thinking, "Yeah, right, nice try, lady," as the IV went in and I barely noticed it.

More alcohol swabbed on, and the heart monitor was hooked up. Dr. C. took away the nitrous oxide mask and gave me one with just oxygen and told me to breathe deeply. They wondered why the beats on the heart monitor sounded funny, then realized my left hand was still clenched into a fist (its pre-IV stance). They asked me to relax it, and I joked, "Sorry, force of habit." They laughed, then Dr. C told me to take deep breaths, and I double-checked if the heart monitor noise was me. Lynn said yes, and I counted three or four beats, and I was gone.

Recovery Room - 10:50-ish AM

My first thought was, "I'm done. It's gone." In those first few minutes, while my body was trying to decide if it was more trouble to try to come fully awake, or to go back to sleep, I could hear the nurses at the desk talking about, of all things, mosquito magnets. They were comparing different models and different prices at different stores. I remember thinking they should get Lynn in on the conversation. Everything I looked at was in slo-mo and triplicate. It hurt my head to try to focus, and so I closed my eyes and drifted back for a bit.

Then later they were there beside me, and the first words out of my mouth were, "How many holes?" It took them a second to realize what I meant, then they told me the good news -- that it had been done laparascopically -- he hadn't had to open me up. One of the nurses brought me another warm blanket, tucked me in and asked how I was feeling. My throat was a little sore from the tube, and I had a little cough that crept up occasionally, but it was nothing like the last time I'd woken up from anaesthesia (when I was 19 and thought for sure I was going to choke to death). I told them the pain was a 5-6 on the 1-10 scale and they popped some morphine into my IV and I dozed off again.

When I was a little more coherent, the two nurses (AnneMarie and a curly-haired blonde girl whose name is now gone) were on either side of me. They asked if they could wash me up, and they seemed really eager. I can't tell you how funny this was, but as soon as I'd said yes, they were immediately checking out my incisions and gushing over them, commenting on how good they were. I asked if Dr. M. had signed his name, and AnneMarie said, "He may as well have." And I looked down at the four patches of very neat little criss-crossed strips of pristine white and even I was suitably impressed.

I came in and out of it a few times, and there was at least one more warm blanket. I think it was around noon when Cathy came to collect me and I was wheeled away again.

Observation Room - Noon til 3:15 PM

I'll spare you the play-by-play at this point, because it's not only a bit dull, but it's quite fuzzy in my head. Somehow I got into the bed under my own power (more like an out-of-body experience -- morphine is pretty powerful stuff), and they brought me the last (sadly) of my warm blankets. I commented that when it was winter and I was cold, I was going to come see them.

It was Gallbladder/Cataract Day, apparently, and I was Number 2 of 3 GB surgeries. On the other side of the curtain, I could hear how GB Patient #1 was progressing as the time went on, so I always had a pretty good idea of what was coming, and by listening to GB Patient #3, it was helping me to remember things more clearly as she went through the steps I'd already done.

Hubby arrived at about 12:40 PM. I was really fuzzy -- one second he wasn't there, and the next second, I heard his voice and he was. I wasn't in too much pain, but I was starting to feel pretty nauseous. Every once in awhile, I'd hear the nurses asking each other if I needed to be washed up, and the others chuckling about how the "other girls" couldn't wait and had already done it. And if I found myself getting bored, all I'd have to do was watch the hallway, as Cathy would be invariably coming and going with someone on a gurney.

Dr. M. was talking to me at one point, and I remember feeling this huge welling of gratitude towards him. I can't really describe it, but it was a feeling almost like love. This man had held my guts in his hands, had taken the source of my horrible, horrible pain away, and it wasn't ever going to hurt me again. It sounds really stupid writing it, but there you are. I asked him if it had given him any trouble, and he hesitated, looked back, and admitted, "A little bit." I realized then there must have been a moment when he'd thought he'd have to do it the hard way and somehow I'd been spared that.

GB Patient #1 had reached the point of trying toast. I'd already had some water, but wasn't sure it was going to stay. The smell of her toast was nearly unbearable, so I decided to breathe through my blankie for a bit. There were really only two unpleasant moments when I thought I was going to be sick -- I managed to will them away, terrified of what it would do to my incisions -- and the rest of the time wasn't so bad as long as I didn't move too much or try to eat.

Hubby ran out to get my painkiller prescription so we wouldn't have to stop on the way home, and I just lazed around. By 2:00, I had some ginger ale, by 2:20 had refused toast as "a bad idea", by 2:35 I'd walked "around the block" (the nurse's station), and by 3:00 we all realized that yes, I felt really rotten, but it was just a matter of time, which I could pass just as easily at home.

Home.

So on the way home, we stopped to get me some Diet Pepsi (which was actually for medicinal purposes -- to help "bubble out" the gas leftover from surgery), and I had a few scary moments in the car while waiting for Hubby to come out, but it was okay. We realized just how bumpy our driveway was, and just how many stairs we have. I went to the computer and posted a brief message to the blog, gave Hubby a brief list of people and numbers to call, and then I went to sleep.

Over the course of the evening, Hubby checked on me about every 45 minutes or so. Pepsi, the dog, was not allowed in the bedroom due to her anxiety and very pointy nose, so she was curled up as close to the door as she possibly could be. I had my palm Lifedrive, so when I was awake, I was playing with that or listening to music.

That night was the worst. At one horrible point, when I needed to get up to take my pills and go to the bathroom, I couldn't sit or stand up without literally screaming. I was flopping and writhing on the bed like a fish on a boat deck. When they did the surgery, they pumped me full of gas so that they could see what they were doing, and although they do their best to pump it back out, they never get it all. That gas had lodged itself as a big bubble right where my gallbladder had been, and every time I tried to move, it would get compressed against something excruciating. Once we had finally gotten me to a seated position on the side of the bed, I decided that's where and how I was going to spend the night. And I did.

And that was my surgery. I wish I could remember the blonde nurse's name (part of me wants to say Shelley), but I remember almost everything else. And yes, of course, I'm going to scrapbook this. Did you have to ask? :)

I'm doing okay now. The gas is mercifully gone, and that was the worst part. Over the weekend, we did a couple of errands. Despite Hubby's gentle cautions, I insisted on weighing in at WW because I am absolutely back on program now that Mr. GB is gone. Once I was out of the house, it was easier to convince Hubby to let me stay out, so I managed to print some ATCs and get some postcards to get ready for the mail, before heading home.

I find that I tire very easily, and that standing up from a seated position is tricky, but it's getting better. After being the world's most attentive and patient nurse, Hubby went back to work today, and I'm laying low. I'm off the painkillers now (have been for about 24 hours) and am feeling more normal. Every time I wake up, I feel better than when I went to sleep.

Most of all, I just miss being at work. I hate the fact that my school year ended so abruptly. I miss my friends. (And to the friend who sent me the e-card from "Colin Firth", you made my day. I saved it for the scrapbook, of course.)

I'm not up for "in-person company", but emails are certainly welcome, and if I'm awake, I'll answer the phone.

Thanks for being here for me, folks. It really means a lot.

Now I'm going back to bed. (This has taken nearly three hours to write. I'll proof-read it later.)