The whole concept of the hysterectomy catches me at the oddest moments.
Monthly Archives: December 2012
2012 was too big to sum up in a single post
Or maybe at all. Huge year. Huge. Full of all sorts of completely life altering things.
In other news, going to the doctor=right call, I feel almost “fine” except for the part where I have to sleep 10-14 hours per day and can’t lift things. I’m off of everything but Piroxicam, and have minimal pain. But much tired. Wonder how much better I would have felt this past week if I’d figured the bladder infection out sooner.
Miles, like Shiny and Laura before him, took his first “run” between the arm of the couch and the gate. He’s done 1-2 steps before, this was closer to 4. He’s getting very stable at just standing without holding onto anything. I walked him in to show off to Daddy… at which point he was so excited about walking that he started bouncing up and down and couldn’t stay on his feet. Goofnut.
We saw The Hobbit. Someone could tell me all the stuff I didn’t recognize was from the Silmarillion and I’d have to believe them because I totally fell asleep reading the Silmarillion before Brooke even wrote a song about it, when I had insomnia even. It was ridiculously dull. I’m just going to tell myself they pulled out the interesting bits and glued them into the Hobbit for funsies. And if anyone bitches at me about spoiling the movie, it’s a book that has been out way longer than I’ve been alive, if you haven’t read it already it’s not my fault.
The movie was worth seeing. It was not worth seeing in Imax, and it was not worth how sore my butt was afterwards. Probably worth seeing on the big screen, but oy, 3 movies, really? They really should have made six out of the LotR, it is sort of bizarre to get 3 out of The Hobbit.
Note to self:
If I ever get my uterus out again, take cranberry after. I feel like an idiot, I have a UTI. After the evol catheter from hell during my epidural I totally took cranberry and despite being totally incontinent for a week (wasn’t that fun… not) I had no long term bladder issues. This time, catheter from hell again (how is it that people cannot feel those things in place? Seriously, if I write out a living will at some point it is going to have instructions that catheters never be left in place ever ever ever ever I do not consent ever again) and I did not do cranberry and lo, for I am inflamed.
So after a pee test yesterday they were all “La di da we found the problem you have a UTI no need to be seen.”
I was all, “LIKE FUCKING HELL YOU WILL SEE ME NOW BECAUSE I HURT DAMMIT LIKE SOMETHING IS WRONG AND I AM NOT GOING ANOTHER WEEK WITHOUT BEING SEEN.” Only nicer. And spacier.
At which point I had the single most immediately successful doctor visit ever.
All doctor visits should go like this. “Let me see. Oh! Is this what hurts? Let me fix that. There. Done.”
I had a stitch that was pulling, literally tearing the skin a little. She took the stitch out and my life is so much better instantly. I had no idea how much of my attention for the past 10 days has been focused on not moving wrong, on not wiping wrong, on coping with the niggling ow that was this one, tiny, poky focal point of ouch. Nothing else was more than an ache, not even the heavy burn of the UTI came close in sheer nuisance factor to that one stitch. I had been worried that I had an infection not just in the bladder but in the incision. No. Everything looks “great”.
And she fixed it, right then and there, done. Now I feel like I could actually sit through a movie, if I didn’t, you know, have to get up and pee every hour or two.
So by dint of locking the barn door after the horse has escaped, I am drinking cranberry thises and thatses (and jesus christ straight cranberry juice is sour) and taking macrodantin and that pyrowhatsis that turns pee a brilliant sunset orange and hopefully I will be feeling better and less spacey soon. I can go completely without pain meds for hours on end. If I couldn’t take them at all, I would still be okay. But I have been instructed to stay on top of things, and so I do. It is remotely possible I will, for once, actually finish a prescription of oxycodone. Except that I keep playing Zeno’s paradox with the tablets and at some point will go down to a half, then a quarter, then a crumb and done, and will never actually finish the last crumb. Or so is my experience with other bottles of oxycodone. I still have 90% of my last prescription, from a year ago, and won’t likely touch that.
Spellcheck wants to replace oxycodone with oxycontin. Which would be a bad idea, really, because I’m told one should never cut those in half. Zeno would end up stoned off his ass, and really never would get there.
recovery in slow motion
I don’t feel much better or worse than I did the day after surgery. Taking less pain meds overall, conservation of pain I guess? I just took a bolus, as it is late and i am tired of the everpresent ache.
So hard not to lift the baby. But teh most strainful thing I do is simply sit upright. Walking is easier. I want a bath so bad. Verdict is out on whether bathing is acceptable or not following a total vag hyst. I’ve just got this tension that won’t leave. Some of the swelling has gone down, which means I can feel the stitches more, everything is sort of changing constantly without really progressing.
K is getting very tired. It is both gratifying and concerning that someone stepping in to take over for me says, “Hey, this is exhausting.” Yeah.
Mostly for Judi
Surgery went well, they managed to do everything vaginally as far as I can tell, so no abdominal incisions at all. I feel “crampy” at this point but I’ve had worse periods. The 6 hours following surgery were awful, brutal, mostly due to the catheter. for some reason I just do not tolerate those things at all. As soon as they took it out I started getting better super fast. On plenty of pain meds, but not loopy at all. Miles spent most of the night with me tucked in next to my side nursing, and it was actually one of the single most effective things for the pain. Crazy. Endorphins, I guess. About time I got some from breastfeeding! I’m on the motherbaby unit here, which is fine, it’s just funny because my baby is so big.
I have zero regrets about doing the surgery, I’m getting better so fast, i think I’m actually moving better now than i was before the surgery, thanks to lots and lots of pain meds (I’ve been off NSAIDS for a while due to prep). They should be releasing me today.
Yesterday was so hard, getting the nursing staff to listen was really difficult. We’ve all figured each other out now so it is much easier. There was an 8 hour period where I was not being adequately medicated because they were not grasping the whole concept of “just because I can’t have a saline lock doesn’t mean you can’t leave the IV in and running at a low rate to keep access.” One nurse decided to blame me for my pain level, and we fired each other. I still don’t get what her issue was. Most of the other nurses have been fantastic. One of them I had to actually beg to not take out the second IV until meds were given, but once I got her to actually pay attention and listen she actually did comprehend and leave it in until they could give me the Toredol.
But basically as soon as they took the cath out and let me out of bed, I was on the mend. They keep expecting me to need more help than I do, so they’re very pleased with my progress. Chances are I’m going home this morning, thank god, where I will be able to sleep and eat and deal with meds on my own schedule.
I’m still blown away by how well I’m doing today.
The robots are taking my uterus away.
Below the cut for much discussion.
