All the details.

Okay, so I was really planning on not writing this till tomorrow, but I needed something to distract myself from the pain, and this seemed like as good of an idea as any. So here goes...

Like I said in a previous post, we were told to be at the hospital at 6 am sharp. This meant my mom and I had to leave by 4:45. Not cool for two very not morning people, but we dealt with it. I thought I wasn't stressing about this surgery. But when I laid down to try to get a few hours of sleep that night, it was like as soon as my head hit the pillow, my eyes were as wide as could be. Laid there till about 2:30 before I realized I just wasn't going to get sleep. So I spent 2:30-4 watching George Lopez on Nick-at-nite and trying to distract myself from stressing about the surgery.

See, I'm used to not sleeping much the night before a surgery. It's just the way I deal with it, I guess. But usually, I sleep some. And this time was just made worse by the fact that I had been up since 8:30 Tuesday morning, from getting up for physical therapy, and before that I had only slept about three hours. So needless to say, I was exhausted. But anyway, I slept for about half an hour in the car, which was okay so I didn't have to think about how hungry and thirsty I was with my mom eating and drinking next to me.

We pulled up to the hospital with like three minutes to spare. The room was packed, which was surprising since it was so early. We checked in and waited.

And waited.

By 7:00, I was getting really ornery that every person in the room with us had been seen, or the person they were there for had been seen, and nobody had called my name. Plus, I really had to go to the bathroom, but I didn't want to because the day of my last surgery, they had to do a urinalysis to make sure I was being honest when I said I really wasn't pregnant, and so I knew if I went to the bathroom then I wouldn't be able to do the test later. Well, the one good thing about the morning was that the really old dude sitting at the check-in desk went and got one of the nurses, and she said the only way they were going to have to do a urinalysis was if I was addicted to any drugs. Since I'm not, I could go to the bathroom freely. Sounds strange to be happy about something so simple, but like I said I was exhausted and pissed off, so any good news was really important to me at the time.

At 7:30, the same lady comes out to me and my mom and sits down with this "I pity you" look on her face. Apparently, we were the second surgery on the schedule that day. Their policy is to have the first and second surgeries get there at 6 am, so if the first surgery has to be cancelled for any reason, the second person would already be there. Well, just my luck, the first surgery of the day was on schedule. Guess what time my surgery was set for.

11:30.

Yes, that's right. ELEVEN THIRTY AM. Five and a half HOURS after my mom and I had arrived there. Not good. Not good at all.

Without even meaning to, I broke down sobbing, right there in a room full of strangers. Blame it on me being so incredibly overtired, but I just couldn't help it. Well, maybe this just made her feel even more sorry for me, so she offered to get my mom and I a private room with a bed and a TV so we could rest until the IV nurse and the anesthesiologist (spelling?) could come start getting me prepped. I was through the moon ecstatic about this.

So my mom and I got in the room and got some rest. About 8:30 the IV nurse came and she had to put my IV on the bottom of my wrist right underneath my palm, which is probably the most uncomfortable place I've ever had an IV. (And trust me, I've had them pretty much everywhere.) And at one point it started bugging me so bad that they almost took it out, but I eventually said "forget it" since it was a perfectly good IV. Retaping it fixed the pain. Go figure.

A little while later, the anesthesiologist came and gave me "some happy medicine" so I was chill. He then informed me that I had a urinary tract infection, so they'd be putting antibiotics in my IV to treat me for that. That was really bizarre to hear since I had had NO symptoms of one, but apparently my white blood cell count was what tipped them off. But I was just kind of "whatever, I've already got the IV in, put whatever you need to in there." He also ordered me a ebulizer treatment because I had some very faint wheezing, but it was again no big deal cause it's about as good as I ever get.

I did lots more sleeping thanks to the "happy medicine" they had given me, so I'm not really sure of what happened between then and about 10:30 when they came and wheeled me off.

One thing I do remember is that the OR smelled really good. The guy who was strapping me to the table, his name was Bill, said he'd never heard that before. Haha. Maybe I was imagining the smell. Then, it was weird. I basically just felt like I blinked, and then I had to go to the bathroom. I didn't even realize that the surgery had even happened until I got in the bathroom and looked at my face. Strange, huh? I normally at least have a faint memory of dozing off. But not this time. I guess that's a good thing.

We ended up getting back home at about 6:00 yesterday evening. I've been having lots of soup and chocolate pudding, which are two of my favorite things. Hah. I was feeling and looking a lot better than I expected to yesterday. Sleeping was nice.

The day after the surgery is always the worst for me, so the pain is really bad today, but I'm dealing with it. I've got Hydrocodone and Tylenol with Codine to keep the pain to a minimum. So I'm fair. The swelling is a lot better than what I thought it was going to be. My doc said I was gonna look like a raccoon, and I don't even look that different from normal, except for the fact that ya know, my nose is swollen.

Post-op check is Wednesday. My mom goes back to work next Thursday the 16th. My homebound status ends April 30. So yeah, that about covers it.