Surgery

Well, here I am post-op, so I will try to write down all the events of Feburary 3rd.

I did not get much sleep, Madeline was sick all night long and required constant love and attention. She was a bit febrile and with her stuffy head was having a bad night.

We got off to a late start in the morning, and things were a bit rushed. Rob took care of Maddie and getting her ready for school. I hopped into a shower to get cleaned up and ready to go.

We pulled the car seat out of Rob's car to leave at the daycare so if my friend had to pick up Madeline, she could. We dropped Maddie off at school which was just down the road from the hospital. I hugged her and told her I loved her and I would see her soon. She had no idea that I was not going to work today.

Rob was being a good guy, but really needed a cup of coffee. So we stopped at D&D. I was driving and told him to spare me the suffering of having nothing to eat or drink since 6:00pm the night before, so he went in without me. We drove up to the hospital, I was listening to "Grandmother Moon" one last time.. {Find me, guide me, stand beside me}. We parked on the top deck of the parking garage. And made our slow walk to the hospital. It was starting to flurry out. Light flakes of pure white.. I wanted to stop and just put my hand out, to feel the snow on my hand. I am so numb inside..

We had to go through the physicians office building and then all the way across to the main hospital building. My surgery was to be done in the Inpatient surgical center. We arrived at around 12:30 or so, so a bit early for my 1:00 appointment. We registered and I filled out my living will and advanced directives. The patient liason nurse came out to tell us that they were running a bit behind, but I should only be about a half an hour later than scheduled. I was a nervous mess. I was trying to read Rob's trains magazine. They announced a Code Blue somewhere... Rob asks what that means... CPR in progress.. And then about three minutes later, they call and cancel the code.. So I could not help it... I announce "I ain't dead yet!" In my best monty python bring out your dead voice... Rob hits me.. Rob decides to call my firend and tell her to pick up madeline since we will be running late.

Soon another nurse comes out to get me. I don't want to stand.. I want to run. I hold out my hand to Rob. They tell me they need to prep me and they will go out and get him so he can then sit with me until I go in for surgery. I hug him and walk in with the nurse. I go to the bathroom and they weigh me in. They ask me my name, birthday, and why I am here.

I go back to a pre-op room where I take everything off except my "johnny" as they call the skimpy thing that shows off my ugly ass. I am given a pair of socks to wear at least. The nurse comes back in and starts asking all the typical questions, alergies, last time I ate, etc. Takes my temperature, puts the blood pressure cuff on me and gets a pulse ox reading. She also puts on a set of compression devices on my legs and hooks them up to an air pump. I hate the itchy plastic, the uncomfortable squeezing like a cheap massage..

Another nurse comes in, she will be with me pre- and post op she states. Another woman comes in and starts slapping the shit out of my left hand. Cleaning it with at least two diffrent cold solutions. Then she sticks my hand in two places with some sort of lidocane solution and it burns like hell. I start to cry. I can't help it. I do not want to be here! I do not want more pain! They finally dig around and put the IV catheter in my hand, trying to sooth me by saying "now, it is only a peice of plastic in there now" LIKE THAT MAKES IT F_ING BETTER SOMEHOW? It should not be there at all! They pump up the flowrate and it feels like someone is pushing ice cubes up my arm. The nurse informs me that they will be giving me a pre-surgical antibiotic, and an anti-inflamatory so that it will help with the "cramps" I will feel afterwards. I wanted to scream "Cramps my ass! Try getting kicked between the legs and then having an elephant stomp on your stomach!"

I told the nurses about my horrible past experiences, where I was treated like crap, where I was told I would not be intubated and woke up coughing up blood clots, bruised from ear to ear and told I was "fighting them".. They seemed like they were horrified that I was treated that way. That they would not treat me like that. I told them I was terrified, and that I suffered PTSD after my previous surgeries. The nurse told me that they would give me something to calm me down once the Anesthesiologist saw me, and that it had amnesia inducing meds in it, and all would be better. I panicked then. I told her I did not want it. That big black holes in my memory is what gives me the worst PTSD. She told me to tell the Anestesiologist that.

Waiting was forever. Rob came back and sat with me. I tried finding something on TV to watch, but nothing good was on. I was watching the news and the headline "woman has kidney removed through vagina" comes on.. I exclaimed, Oh wow! Yet one more thing they can f around with our vagina for! Woo hoo! Can't they stay the heck out of there!!!



Seemed that we were waiting forever. The nurse started the antibiotic in the IV and adds the "anti-inflamatory". Soon I hear Dr. O outside the curtain. She is talking to someone and then her and the anesthesiologist comes in. He tells me that he has heard from all the nurses, and Dr. O about how bad my previous experiences were. They ask me to confirm why I am here. I remark " I am here for the merry maid service, a vaccume and sweep, with hopefully better service". At this Dr. O cringes, but the Anesthesiologist laughs and tells us a story about his seeing Merry maids in a small car, smoking like chimneys and driving like maniacs.. So we both agree to stay away from Merry Maids... I am truly tired of saying why I am here. Each time I have to come face to face with it. A D&E! I know they have to ask me so I do not go home with an amputated leg or anything, but still... I hate having to say it!!!!



Dr. O tells me things will be alright, and that she will come out and talk to me at the end. And then she dissapears. The Anesthesiologist asks about my previous experience. I tell him about my D&C, where I woke up choking on blood clots, and bruised from ear to ear. He asks what teaching hospital I was at. "Princeton Medical Center". He tells me that was unacceptable, and he will make sure I am completely asleep. That there is no need for me to worry about fighting them or anything, that I was not given enough medicaiton, and what they did was wrong.. I tell him about the Anesthesiologist at my DD's cesarean, when he exclaims "I did it on the first try!" again the Anesthesiologist is horrified and asked what univeristy hospital that was.. "Robert Wood Johnson".. He then remarks it was a good thing I got out of NJ because they were butchers down there!!! No Shit! Years of PTSD from that crap!



He seems really nice, and takes time to talk about himself, and how he is from Staten Island, and went to school in Ithaca, and spent lots of time up in Rochester. DH and I told him we went to school in Rochester. He was calming, and soothing. I took comfort that he would be there with me.



So a little bit more waiting, and soon the OR nurse came in, introduced herself to me and stated she would be with me through the whole thing in the OR. On went my beautiful hairnet. Unplugged my snazzy air stockings and the Nurse told me they would be giving me the meds to make me forget now. I told them no. not yet. I held Robbies hand and kissed him goodbye. On the way to the OR Dr. O stopped me, I had to sign one more sheet of paper. She looked all worried about it, and I knew what she had to explain. She started by saying, "after they do the testing, they need to know..." and I replied " I know, I have heard the cold medical language before, I am used to the callous medical world. The products of conception can be disposed as medical biohazardous waste." The nurse pats my hand and replies "well, we are not all that callous". I signed the paper..



I was wheeled into the OR, and asked to move over onto the operating table. They made sure my gown was not under me. I had to lign my ass up with the crack in the table where they would take down the bed. I was given another warm blanket as they placed the EKG leads on my chest. I was told they were giving me the medication now. I asked if they were going to tie my arms down, and they told me after I was asleep. They folded my arms up under the blankets on my chest. I had one nurse holding my right shoulder, and one holding my left. Another nurse put what felt like a 30LB weight belt across my stomach. I looked up into the numerous bright lights, with my glasses still on, and closed my eyes.



I woke up lygin on my back, moving. I moaned out, I HURT! I HURT! Then that was followed by " IAM WET!!! Wet!" as the nurses were busy around me, hooking up the compression stockings again, and my IV had come loose, the IV fluids were running down my arm. I curled up into a ball on my left side, as the nurse took off the O2 mask. My hands pushed into my stomach. I felt like someone kicked me in the stomach, and my left hip felt like it was pulled out of the socket. The nurse announced she was giving more pain medication, and I closed my eyes again.

I woke up to the nurse at the foot of my bed having a conversation with another nurse about signing some paperwork from two days ago. They were discussing whether or not she should sign it. After one walked away, I started talking to the nurse about why she should not back date documentation. I explained how the FDA looks at GMP documentation, and why if something was missed and caught upon review, that it must be documented as such, and that it can be explained that the action being documented was completed as documented, but signed at a later date. We had a breif conversation about this, with her talking about high error rates, etc. And then I just looked at her and stated "Looks like I am lucid huh? sorry, I deal with GMP documentation issues all day long."

So She started getting me ready to go back over to the post surgical area so that I could be with DH. Another set of vitals, she asked if I wanted the rest of the pain meds in the syringe since she would just throw it away anyways. We both agreed that waisting pain meds is wrong, and she topped me off. It really was not anything good anyways. I asked if any of the good stuff spilled when my IV leaked. She said no.. Just saline.. Phew... That stuff in hospitals is like $200 a hit!

So off came my air pants, and it was off to the secondary recovery section. The nurses moved me into this sort of lazee boy chair and propped me up in that. Soon DH was there with me and holding my hand. They brought me some toast and a cup of coffee, which was the first thing I had eaten in over 12+ hours. Toast never tasted better! I was still having considerable pain in my belly, again the broad diffuse pain like getting kicked really hard by an elephant. Plus my hip still felt horrible on the left side. Burned like it was torqued wrong. Probably how they put me up into the stirrups while I was unconsious. Wonderful image huh...

Dr O comes in and tells me everything went as expected. That she was as minimal as possible, so to expect my recovery to be diffrent. She stated that I will have light bleeding, but in about 3-4 days, when my hormones crash, I will shed the rest of the uterine lining. So this told me she did not scrape the shit out of my uterine wall. If she had, which is the typical process, I would only have light bleeding for a short while, since there was no more tissue left to bleed in there. That made me feel better, because i was concerned with scar tissue and damage to the uterine wall. After all this is uterine surgery #3 now..

She decided to give me Vicodin since I was uncomfortable and gave me a script to bring home. She gave my DH the death ray look and explained that I was to put NOTHING in my vagina for two weeks. And that she would see me for the post op appointment. To schedule it for her last day with the practice, Feb 12th. She looked tired, and I was her last surgery for the day. She was great with coming to talk to me post surgical. Previously I never saw the doctor. They called my family in the waiting room, but never bothered to talk to ME about ME! It was really nice she took the time out to come back and talk to me.

So soon it was time to go to the bathroom, get cleaned up, pull on my pants, clothes, have DH tie up my shoes, and get ready to go home. It was like 5:30-6:00 so it was good that my friend picked up DD from daycare. By the time we stopped to get the perscription, it would be late.

As I was waiting for DH to make the long walk back to the parking garage, and then drive around to the ER entrance I was talking with my nurse. We were talking about my experience in EMS, and she about hers in nursing. We talked about how there is a lot of burnout, and a lot of crap, stress, and nasty people we deal with. But we both agreed that sometimes, there is that one event, that one person that makes it all worth while. That keeps us going even though 99% of the time it sucks. I asked for a list of the people who dealt with me so I could keep it in my records.

She wheeled me up to the ER entrance, and DH had pulled the truck around. It was sitting there running, a light coat of fresh white snow had fallen all around. We saw DH dash into the Er entrance. The nurse decided to help me into the truck since it was freezing and I only had a flannel on. After she helped me up and in, I took hold of her arm and stated " I just want you to know, that today, you did make a diffrence in my life. Thank you." and she looked as if she would cry, she replied with "thank you" and then closed the door to go find DH. I found my pillow and blanket, and put the pillow under the lap belt of my seatbelt. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to cry, to go to sleep forever.

Soon DH was back in the truck and we were on our way. We stopped for my perscription, and I also picked up some of those therma care heat wraps for PMS. Thank god.

I got home, and DD was busy watching TV, and then was clammering to see DH. So my friend helped me get my shoes and jacket off and then up into bed. I pulled on my PJ's and wrapped the heating pad around me, and passed out.

So that was that. A better story than my first time, but still shitty in essence that i had to endrue it in the first place. I feel that I was respected, listened to, and well treated. So on the scale of traumatic, I would say a 3-4.