Well, it has come to this. I waited a bit after surgery to write because I just wasn't up to it and have not been really happy with everything about myself.
My week in the hospital was HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. It took forever to get going because my one surgeon AND the anesthesiologist got stuck in another surgery at a different hospital. So I sat around like this, in pain, for HOURS. Hungry. Anxious. Freezing. In asshole Christmas socks.
But then they finally showed up and I got good drugs. Oh and 2 units of blood. Naturally. My hemoglobin was in the 6s. Yeah. How I don't pass out on a regular basis is beyond me.
****Do me a favor people. Donate blood. Even if it's once a year. I've officially had enough units to replace 100% of my blood volume. And I've never been able to give back because of meds or because it's too close to the most recent transfusion. So please. Go do it for me.****
Then it was go time. Slice and dice. Again. Done. Over it.
Post OP they could not get my pain under control for almost 48 hours. I was at a 10/10 the first night into the next day. I wanted someone to just shoot me in the head. My PCA wouldn't light up fast enough. My EVA from WALL-E. A little magic button of pain relief. Here I am stoned. Yet still in pain. It just wasn't enough.
I can't even describe it. Internal pain, external incision pain, pain from the new stoma, my stomach screaming at me because it hadn't had anything in it in almost 48 hours. Not even an ice chip. If I could have strangled someone with my IV lines I would have. But it hurt too much to move. Plus it's really tough getting an IV going on me so I didn't want to risk losing one. While I was under the anesthesiologist gave me a "back up" IV because I blow IVs like it's my job with my shitty little veins. Then I crossed into ileus which is when your guts aren't entirely awake yet after surgery. Paralysis. So they gave me the ok for liquids and I couldn't help myself. JELLO!!! The apple juice was the greatest thing I'd ever had. By this time I hadn't eaten or drank in 3 days. Here is what sent me into a personal hell for 48 hours. Mind you that's about all I ate. Maybe 3 tiny bites. And I paid for it for 2 days.
The intestinal pain started because some things were working and some weren't. Then I started barfing my brains out. Violent and disgusting. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced and I'm pretty sure I wanted to die. Again. I missed getting an NG tube by the skin of my teeth. That's when they put a tube down your nose and throat into your stomach and suck everything out so you aren't getting sick anymore. I just couldn't handle that on top of everything else. So I kept puking and crying and dealing with the pain and sickness hoping it would stop. My colorectal surgeon gave me until the next morning and then I was getting one put in. The ileus has the same symptoms of a blockage so he was getting worried. My nurses must have thought I was nuts. They told me to get one. Easy for them to say. Luckily it passed. I could sip a little bit while on Zofram and Phenergan and be ok, so I got through it without one more invasive event happening.
So then finally after the 5th day I felt like I was moving toward recovery. I was finally walking and Hubs and Daughter #2 joined me with her balloon gloves.
Anyway- I've been crabby. This hospital stay crossed some emotional line with me. Maybe because it was multiple procedures in one. Maybe because I thought the hospital sucked. Half my nurses thought I'd only had a hysterectomy. The other half an ileostomy. In my week there I didn't meet one person (aside from my surgeons) who were aware I had multiple procedures in my surgery. One shift of nurses didn't even acknowledge my OBGYN as a doctor. I needed a new gown and was so out of it. So on one of her visits she buzzed and asked them where the gowns were. They pointed. Oh yeah. Pointed. That went over like a lead balloon. She proceeded to stay with me for an hour just talking to me. Changed my gown herself and took care of me. She is seriously the best doctor I have ever met. Popped in on her off Saturday with her DAUGHTER to check on me. Her partner was on call but she came anyway because she was worried about me. She's amazing. But I digress. I've been feeling beaten and defeated. I don't want to do this shit anymore. I've had it. I've had it with recovery. With being cut open. With scars and pain and hospitals. HAD IT. My FrankenBelly is worse. It is hideous. They cut through scar tissue so it just aches. My stoma is bleeding around the outside. Here's my new Stupid Stoma. I will say having already had one, the adjustment to it has been leaps and bounds better. I'm emotionally removed from the event. I am having some minor skin issues but I think I'm top of it since I've done this before. He moved it closer to my belly button this time which kinda pissed me off because it's really hard getting a good seal on your wafer with the crevice of your belly button so close to the stoma. But I'm small and he has to put it in a certain spot based on abdominals (that I barely have anyway) so his choices are limited.
It hurts all around it internally. I have sharp internal pain where my sausage fallopian tube was. It's probably just tissue that's healing but it hurts likes a bitch. I don't know. Sometimes I seriously don't know how the hell I continually go through this crap and keep it together. I'm close to losing it I think.
I was going to go to NY after Christmas to go to my Aunt's wedding. Then the surgery got pushed to December so I couldn't. The wedding was last night and seeing the pictures today have made me really sad and really prompted me finally writing this post. I'm sick of things interfering with MY life and what I want to do. So I missed my Aunt's wedding and I'm sad about it. I don't DO anything. My pain and surgeries and issues rule my activities, or lack thereof. WTF am I doing? I know I've said it before but it seriously like years of my life have slipped away. There's always something that is a roadblock to me living. This year Christmas was a wreck because I was in recovery mode. So I couldn't do what I wanted. I've lost almost 10lbs and I'm tired. I'm dehydrated. Making dinner killed me for 3 days. I definitely overdid it last week with my mom and stepdad here. I didn't even do much but I overdid it. What was I supposed to do? Lay in bed with people in town? I mean what the hell. Something has to give. Not to mention what I spend on meds and now will be spending on ostomy supplies for the next few months. I'm in a funk. I hate myself. I'm exhausted. I'm hurting. It's another month gone. Another winter I didn't go to a tropical island with my husband. Another event I missed.
On top of it, I have incompletes in my classes because I couldn't take my finals. So I will have to deal with that in the next few weeks. Kind of nervous. The hiatus probably did nothing for my retention. Sucks. Just sucks.
So yeah. That's me. Crabby. Cut up. No motivation. I feel more broken than ever. And you know what literally feels like a stab in the chest? I shouldn't say it because everything is relative but that fact doesn't change how it makes me feel. It kills me when people complain about the smallest thing. It's really hard to hear people complain about how absolutely miserable they are with a head cold, their flight is delayed or whatever when I'm stapled shut AGAIN and my kids and their holiday impacted by that fact. People take their health for granted so much. Take their abilities for granted. Jumping up and playing with their kids. Spending hours making cookies. Shopping for that perfect gift. Actually being able to get on a plane to travel. I'd take a 7 hour delay to be able to go away but it seems I never can. Pop some alka seltzer for your cold. Have some drinks at the airport and people watch. Be grateful you don't have chronic pain. Or have been gutted more than once. Or have kids who are used to you being sick and in the hospital. =( Sorry, like I said I know everything is relative but I can't help it. I would have killed to have had some of the "problems" some people have had over the holidays. That's my reality. I don't know when it'll change or if it ever will. I don't know that this temporary ostomy will work. Maybe my guts don't know how to be healthy. Maybe my pouchitis and flares will come back after my NEXT surgery. It's all a crap shoot. I know this though... at some point I will do what I want anyway whether it be while in pain or during recovery or whatever because I have had it with my life not feeling like mine. I go days without going outside. I've become the anti-Lisa. I am so far from who I was and I can only hope that these years of bullshit haven't erased all of it. I already feel a big part of me not caring. Of letting opportunities pass by because it will take so much out of me to make it happen. That was never me. If I won a vacation tomorrow there is a part of me that wouldn't care. That would assume I couldn't do it, or it would be too much work or I'd get there and not be able to do what I wanted. It sucks. That negative fog just keeps trying to creep around and win. I just need one good stretch of time where I don't have any issues and I know it would go away. I just need to get there. Maybe in 2014.
Thanks for reading. Hope everyone had a wonderful whatever holiday they celebrate. Happy New Year.
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Well, it has come to this. I waited a bit after surgery to write because I just wasn't up to it and have not been really happy with everything about myself.
My week in the hospital was HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. It took forever to get going because my one surgeon AND the anesthesiologist got stuck in another surgery at a different hospital. So I sat around like this, in pain, for HOURS. Hungry. Anxious. Freezing. In asshole Christmas socks.
But then they finally showed up and I got good drugs. Oh and 2 units of blood. Naturally. My hemoglobin was in the 6s. Yeah. How I don't pass out on a regular basis is beyond me.
****Do me a favor people. Donate blood. Even if it's once a year. I've officially had enough units to replace 100% of my blood volume. And I've never been able to give back because of meds or because it's too close to the most recent transfusion. So please. Go do it for me.****
Then it was go time. Slice and dice. Again. Done. Over it.
Post OP they could not get my pain under control for almost 48 hours. I was at a 10/10 the first night into the next day. I wanted someone to just shoot me in the head. My PCA wouldn't light up fast enough. My EVA from WALL-E. A little magic button of pain relief. Here I am stoned. Yet still in pain. It just wasn't enough.
I can't even describe it. Internal pain, external incision pain, pain from the new stoma, my stomach screaming at me because it hadn't had anything in it in almost 48 hours. Not even an ice chip. If I could have strangled someone with my IV lines I would have. But it hurt too much to move. Plus it's really tough getting an IV going on me so I didn't want to risk losing one. While I was under the anesthesiologist gave me a "back up" IV because I blow IVs like it's my job with my shitty little veins. Then I crossed into ileus which is when your guts aren't entirely awake yet after surgery. Paralysis. So they gave me the ok for liquids and I couldn't help myself. JELLO!!! The apple juice was the greatest thing I'd ever had. By this time I hadn't eaten or drank in 3 days. Here is what sent me into a personal hell for 48 hours. Mind you that's about all I ate. Maybe 3 tiny bites. And I paid for it for 2 days.
The intestinal pain started because some things were working and some weren't. Then I started barfing my brains out. Violent and disgusting. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced and I'm pretty sure I wanted to die. Again. I missed getting an NG tube by the skin of my teeth. That's when they put a tube down your nose and throat into your stomach and suck everything out so you aren't getting sick anymore. I just couldn't handle that on top of everything else. So I kept puking and crying and dealing with the pain and sickness hoping it would stop. My colorectal surgeon gave me until the next morning and then I was getting one put in. The ileus has the same symptoms of a blockage so he was getting worried. My nurses must have thought I was nuts. They told me to get one. Easy for them to say. Luckily it passed. I could sip a little bit while on Zofram and Phenergan and be ok, so I got through it without one more invasive event happening.
So then finally after the 5th day I felt like I was moving toward recovery. I was finally walking and Hubs and Daughter #2 joined me with her balloon gloves.
Anyway- I've been crabby. This hospital stay crossed some emotional line with me. Maybe because it was multiple procedures in one. Maybe because I thought the hospital sucked. Half my nurses thought I'd only had a hysterectomy. The other half an ileostomy. In my week there I didn't meet one person (aside from my surgeons) who were aware I had multiple procedures in my surgery. One shift of nurses didn't even acknowledge my OBGYN as a doctor. I needed a new gown and was so out of it. So on one of her visits she buzzed and asked them where the gowns were. They pointed. Oh yeah. Pointed. That went over like a lead balloon. She proceeded to stay with me for an hour just talking to me. Changed my gown herself and took care of me. She is seriously the best doctor I have ever met. Popped in on her off Saturday with her DAUGHTER to check on me. Her partner was on call but she came anyway because she was worried about me. She's amazing. But I digress. I've been feeling beaten and defeated. I don't want to do this shit anymore. I've had it. I've had it with recovery. With being cut open. With scars and pain and hospitals. HAD IT. My FrankenBelly is worse. It is hideous. They cut through scar tissue so it just aches. My stoma is bleeding around the outside. Here's my new Stupid Stoma. I will say having already had one, the adjustment to it has been leaps and bounds better. I'm emotionally removed from the event. I am having some minor skin issues but I think I'm top of it since I've done this before. He moved it closer to my belly button this time which kinda pissed me off because it's really hard getting a good seal on your wafer with the crevice of your belly button so close to the stoma. But I'm small and he has to put it in a certain spot based on abdominals (that I barely have anyway) so his choices are limited.
It hurts all around it internally. I have sharp internal pain where my sausage fallopian tube was. It's probably just tissue that's healing but it hurts likes a bitch. I don't know. Sometimes I seriously don't know how the hell I continually go through this crap and keep it together. I'm close to losing it I think.
I was going to go to NY after Christmas to go to my Aunt's wedding. Then the surgery got pushed to December so I couldn't. The wedding was last night and seeing the pictures today have made me really sad and really prompted me finally writing this post. I'm sick of things interfering with MY life and what I want to do. So I missed my Aunt's wedding and I'm sad about it. I don't DO anything. My pain and surgeries and issues rule my activities, or lack thereof. WTF am I doing? I know I've said it before but it seriously like years of my life have slipped away. There's always something that is a roadblock to me living. This year Christmas was a wreck because I was in recovery mode. So I couldn't do what I wanted. I've lost almost 10lbs and I'm tired. I'm dehydrated. Making dinner killed me for 3 days. I definitely overdid it last week with my mom and stepdad here. I didn't even do much but I overdid it. What was I supposed to do? Lay in bed with people in town? I mean what the hell. Something has to give. Not to mention what I spend on meds and now will be spending on ostomy supplies for the next few months. I'm in a funk. I hate myself. I'm exhausted. I'm hurting. It's another month gone. Another winter I didn't go to a tropical island with my husband. Another event I missed.
On top of it, I have incompletes in my classes because I couldn't take my finals. So I will have to deal with that in the next few weeks. Kind of nervous. The hiatus probably did nothing for my retention. Sucks. Just sucks.
So yeah. That's me. Crabby. Cut up. No motivation. I feel more broken than ever. And you know what literally feels like a stab in the chest? I shouldn't say it because everything is relative but that fact doesn't change how it makes me feel. It kills me when people complain about the smallest thing. It's really hard to hear people complain about how absolutely miserable they are with a head cold, their flight is delayed or whatever when I'm stapled shut AGAIN and my kids and their holiday impacted by that fact. People take their health for granted so much. Take their abilities for granted. Jumping up and playing with their kids. Spending hours making cookies. Shopping for that perfect gift. Actually being able to get on a plane to travel. I'd take a 7 hour delay to be able to go away but it seems I never can. Pop some alka seltzer for your cold. Have some drinks at the airport and people watch. Be grateful you don't have chronic pain. Or have been gutted more than once. Or have kids who are used to you being sick and in the hospital. =( Sorry, like I said I know everything is relative but I can't help it. I would have killed to have had some of the "problems" some people have had over the holidays. That's my reality. I don't know when it'll change or if it ever will. I don't know that this temporary ostomy will work. Maybe my guts don't know how to be healthy. Maybe my pouchitis and flares will come back after my NEXT surgery. It's all a crap shoot. I know this though... at some point I will do what I want anyway whether it be while in pain or during recovery or whatever because I have had it with my life not feeling like mine. I go days without going outside. I've become the anti-Lisa. I am so far from who I was and I can only hope that these years of bullshit haven't erased all of it. I already feel a big part of me not caring. Of letting opportunities pass by because it will take so much out of me to make it happen. That was never me. If I won a vacation tomorrow there is a part of me that wouldn't care. That would assume I couldn't do it, or it would be too much work or I'd get there and not be able to do what I wanted. It sucks. That negative fog just keeps trying to creep around and win. I just need one good stretch of time where I don't have any issues and I know it would go away. I just need to get there. Maybe in 2014.
Thanks for reading. Hope everyone had a wonderful whatever holiday they celebrate. Happy New Year.
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Hi Lisa, I hope you're right and 2014 is the year you see a prosperous turnaround! I wanted to reach out personally with a question, but couldn't find your email on the page. If you could, please email me at mtrucillo(at)recallcenter(dot)com when you see this. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHey Mario. You can email me at gutsygirllisa@gmail.com It should be on my profile somewhere! Thanks!!!
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