Benign!

Apparently, context is everything when one is picking out the most beautiful word(s) in a language.

The one thing that had me a little apprehensive about my surgery was waiting to hear what the test results were. I didn't have to wait. The first three words I heard as I was regaining consciousness were, in three different voices, "benign, benign", and "benign". As these voices were hovering near me, I figured they were referring to my surgery, and I didn't have to wait and worry. It was OK to wake up. I did, just long enough to moan, get a push-button placed into my hand, and heard another voice explain that all I had to do for the pain was push the button whenever I wanted.

It's pretty hard to OD on the stuff when the second push knocks you out. And I can't promise that it's not just a 10-second delay from the first push, that the 2nd one so soon doesn't count.

"The stuff" was dilaudid, the same painkiller we give my Dad in pill form at bedtime.

Everybody asks how long my surgery was. It was scheduled to start at 10 AM, but at 10:05 they were still working on finding a vein for the IV. Luckily for me, they tried using hot towels and finger slaps, not poke-by-trial-and-error like my most recent surgery, 22 years ago. Seven times! Seven times!!! Somebody's ego got in the way back then. I can't fault them for not finding a vein when first, I had one liquids-only day, then after 8 PM, no liquids, except for the two swallows it took to take my prescriptions, including a diuretic. Talk about a challenge! So, 10:05 was my start point, needle in and rolling down the hall, and 2:30 was when I started to wake.

They removed 6 lbs. (I asked them to weigh it and let me know. They weighed it regardless of whether I wanted to know.) I was told it was highly vascularized. In other words, it had a whole lot of blood vessels running through it, which also means it was not small and dense, but large and porous. Once the swelling goes down and the gas goes away, I'll have a nicely smaller tummy. Not tiny, just smaller. Highly vascularized also means I lost a lot of blood. I knew that the first time I looked at my hands. They were white, and since I was in the bathroom at the time, I checked out the face. It was too. I'm normally very ruddy-complected. I saw a "normal" face looking back at me. Weird! Anyway, my surgery usually costs 100 of whatever units they measure blood loss in. Mine they figured 1100. No wonder they were always asking if I felt dizzy.

No, I've been dizzy. This wasn't the same, but I did feel a little light-headed at times. and for the first several hours the dilaudid made the ceiling tiles roll, so I just closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

I got nothing but ice chips and a sponge that first day, although I was cheating and sipping the melt-water during the evening. Since nothing came back up, and nausea seemed to be their prime concern, I figured it wasn't going to be a problem. The nurses were all terrific, though the first night I'd forgotten where the nurse call was. They have these pictures on the side rails of the bed that work for back and knees up and down. They also show lights and the nurse call symbol, but they don't work from the bed sides. There was a thing on the end of a cord that worked for those, and by the time I finally got somebody's attention, I was pretty frustrated. They were busy settling in a couple other new patients, and didn't come in quite as often without my calling them. Once I figured that out, however, it was fine.

One of my big concerns was my blood sugar levels. It spiked a couple times, and they put me on insulin. Since I'd never been on that before, I was now concerned about how I'd react with that. Especially since it was night and I'd be getting fewer visits. When I was awake enough, I tested my own with my own kit. They took their own samples, so 6 times a day did seem reassuring. Their test might be ten minutes after mine, and it'd show a different result. I expected that. But their prick hurt a lot more than mine did, so for the final one before letting me out, I offered to do the stab myself and they could sample from the same blood spot. I was curious how well they two coordinated. Mine came up at 180, and theirs at 156! From the same drop of blood!

From the first I told everybody that I was leaving Tuesday by the end of the day. At first, only eyebrows were raised, until one of the nurses who was walking with me through the halls informed me that if I released myself without my doctor's approval, my insurance wouldn't cover any of the stay!

Well, then, I better hurry up and recover. Let's walk some more, shall we? The nice thing about my walking after surgery was that my knees didn't hurt a bit! Nada! Nothing! No twinge. Wow, musta been some good meds! Since the belly didn't either, I felt free to move a bit, when I wasn't asleep, which was still about 95% of the time. But I sat myself in the bed, "walked" my hipbones back into position so the bed bend and my back bend matched up, and no pain whatsoever. I even did a sit-up to pull the blanket up to cover my legs from the foot of the bed.

Frankly, I was amazed. The C-section hurt way more than this. So did having the gall-bladder out. Way more! This was a cake walk.

Food was a big disappointment. Breakfast was coffee, chicken broth and beef broth. (All three better at home.) With the nurse's help, I ordered Cheerios for my mid-morning snack. The kitchen wouldn't allow it otherwise. But we both reasoned that if I kept the broth down, I'd be on soft foods anyway, and after munching, Cheerios are mush by the time they reach the stomach.

Lunch was an omelet, with whatever I wanted in it. Only no onion, no mushroom, and no green pepper. Don't know why, something to do with my post-surgical diet. Supper was a cheeseburger, again no lettuce or tomato allowed. It's not that I had an appetite, or felt hungry, just deprived of flavor. And while they were very concerned about some things, including sodium, they sent along a little bowl with salt, pepper, cream and sugar - yes, sugar! - along with the food. One size fits all, send directly to patient, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I get to fill out a survey in a couple weeks about my stay. I'll be sure to mention it.

They switched me off the dilauded IV and over to Percoset with Tylenol the second morning to see how I tolerated it. It was two pills every three hours, and they were working fine. I finally convinced them to contact my surgeon at his office and get him over to check me out to see if I was indeed ready to go home. He popped in just before 5 PM, mentioning that the frozen section was also benign, and we were waiting on one more in a couple of days. I'd already ordered supper, had Paul on his way down, and was organizing my homecoming. Luckily the doc agreed. He did say, however, that the Percoset was slowing down my bowels, and I'd need to switch over to ibuprofin as quickly as possible. In aid of that, he sent me home with 20 pills, no refills. Fine, I was feeling great.

That lasted about halfway home. It turns out there are a whole lot of bumps in the road along that 45-mile stretch. By the time I got home, I was feeling every one of them. And that's with a pillow hugged between my tummy and the seat belt, taking most of the jostling.

I'm taking one pill now, every 3-4 hours apart, with Paul keeping track of them for me. While I'm on them, I don't do so well in that department. So he keeps track of how long since a pill, a meal, or whatever. And I'm mostly ensconced in my bedroom, either in bed or on the recliner loveseat for eating, reading, and some sleeping. I woke up an hour or so ago, and have been blogging. But now it's time for another pill and back to sleep. There's still lots of sleeping going on, and the pain isn't there until I move, mostly. But it's getting better.