The Bitch is Back!

Stone cold sober, as a matter of fact. Hey kids! Did ya miss me? Most of you know the basics of what has been going on the last couple of weeks, but for those of you who don't...I've got a little story to tell.

Warning: moderately graphic discussion to follow

So, I had an "emergency" hysterectomy on the 9th.

Got your attention yet? The picture to the left is what my arm looked like after FOUR flippin' attempts to get a vein that wouldn't blow in order to pump me with iodine to get a CAT scan.

Here's the short version: I've been having "chick problems" since mid-Jan. so I set up a doctor's appointment. After the lower half of my body saw more action than it's had in years, the doctor tells me I've got fibroids and cysts. Goodie! She runs several tests and sets up an appointment in a couple of weeks to discuss options, etc., but she does tell me that a hysterectomy is a possibility.

So, I go back to my car, have a quick freak out cry then go to work. Yes, that's right, even in the middle of angst I go to my job. I'm a dedicated idiot. Anyway, the next day at work, I get a phone call from the doctor. She wants me in ASAP to get a CAT scan. Seems my blood work came back and I had a hemoglobin number of 6. This is very bad. Normal is between 11-14. Essentially, I'd lost half of my blood. I go get the scan and endure the pain of multiple attempts to poke me (during one particularly painful jab I called out "flippin' puppies" because I didn't want to cuss...aren't I polite around strangers?). I believe the scan was to make sure I wasn't bleeding internally. The scan got checked and I was sent home.

Later that evening, the doctor calls and says she has been worrying about me and she wants me to go to the hospital and get a blood transfusion. Excuse me? Ermmm, you sent me home, could you not have thought about this then? After a frantic and freaked out call to my Mom, she and my sis drove me to the hospital and around 2am I started getting filled up. I got 3 units in about 6 hours. Yee haw! Thanks blood donors!! The next morning the doctor comes in and tells me that the cysts I have a freakin' huge (11cm and 8cm respectively) and after some more discussion it's decided that a hysterectomy is the best course of action. She had set aside time the night before so I was going into surgery that afternoon. So, in just over 48 hours I went from a doctor's appointment to surgery. Whoosh.

Thankfully, I had family and friends come by which helped keep me sane as I waited to go to pre-op. I was trying to keep my spirits up, mostly for my Mom's sake. We got down to pre-op almost an hour after I was scheduled to be there. Nothing like waiting to make a person anxious. We'd gotten through all the nursing, etc. meet and greet, I'd said my "I love you's" to everybody there and was ready to hit it when another nurse snags us just as we are leaving the room and says "we have to get a pregnancy test."

Seriously? In all the tests you have done, the blood work, the sonogram, the CAT scan, you couldn't have determined this already? So as I'm being rolled out I start laughing and say "If you only knew just how unlikely it is that I'm pregnant..." Actually, I said something funnier, but I don't remember what it was. Now, I gotta go pee in a cup while keeping my IV and travelling bag o' saline, etc. from getting in the way. Thank God they'd hooked that up in my left arm. They put a rush on the test because the next stop is the operating room.

Everything hits me as I'm no longer surrounded by people I love and I don't have to be quite so brave and I start crying. Thankfully, hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd playing in the operating room makes me laugh and I calm down. Of course, the drugs I got a minute or so later which knocked me out in about 3 seconds probably helped too.

The next thing I know I'm struggling to keep my eyes open and focus while waking up in recovery. Then the pain hits me. The best way I can explain it is to say it felt like someone in stiletto heels was standing INSIDE me while someone else was pushing on my lower back from behind. The nurse asks me to rate my pain from 1-10. I have a problem with this because I need something to quantify 1 and 10. In my head, 10 is being on fire while alive so I opt for an 8 for my pain. She gives me something. She gives me more. She hits me a 3rd time and I'm only down to a 7.5. I was in recovery for 2 hours and it took forever for me to get down to a 5. She gave me everything she could. When I get back to the room, Jinn asks me how I'm doing and I said, "Sorry Mom, but I'm going to cuss...I am in the worst F**KING pain of my life." Which wasn't 100 % true at that exact moment, but it was close.

Come the next day, I get to eat regular food, which was a challenge because my throat hurt from the breathing tube. I also got various things removed from my person and am told I need to start getting up and walking around. Blood clots bad! I started out just moving about the room, but by the afternoon I was roaming the halls of my floor. The doctor came in to see me and told me they'd found a little surprise during the surgery. In addition to all the other crap, I also had endomitriosis! Groovy. The doctor still can't figure out how I hadn't shown any outward symptoms until just a few months ago. My body is just a crazy maze of weirdness.

I got to go home Mother's Day, which was good for my back (hospital beds aren't designed to actually sleep in). It also worked out since I'd watched the same 3 episodes of Top Chef about 3 times in the last couple of days. I also watched a lot of Sports Center, especially the first night during my blood transfusions.

I got my staples removed a week later and was told that I didn't have to come back for another appointment until closer to the 6 week mark. Since I can't lift anything over 10 lbs. I'm off work for the 6 weeks. YEAH!! An actual benefit to this whole situation. Sadly, I had to miss Radiohead in St. Louis, which really sucked. I'm hoping I can get someone to go with me to Indy to see them in Aug. I'm hopeful I will get to go to Scotland though. The trip comes up at the 4 week mark and my doctor said she thought it would be okay, I just can't carry my own luggage. I'm thinking since I'm on a group trip I should be able to work around this issue fairly easily.

I spent the last week and a half at my Mom's recovering. My Mom is flippin' amazing and I love her to death. We aren't always the most emotionally expressive group of people, but my family was right there for me which made going through everything much easier. I also have to thank everyone who came to see me or called or sent cards, etc. You always sort of know in the back of your head just what sort of friends you have, but to see it in action just makes you feel that much stronger and happy to have that sort of connection with people.

The last few days have been pretty quiet. Mostly I've been walking around the house with the odd trip to the backyard when my nephew gets home from school and he wants to go out to swing. I can also sing almost all of the theme song to Little Einsteins and have become a fan of Lou & Lou Safety Patrol (on the Disney channel around 7:25 am).

I'm back in my apartment now so I'll be able to blog, but I'm not sure how exciting they will be since I'm not around my usual angst at work. I'll see what I can do.

Later.