Recovery Update

For those interested, my recovery is coming along very slowly, but hopefully surely. I have not been on the computer since Thursday or Friday due to the fact that I have been so nauseated. I am keeping fluids and solid food down, but I must take my anti-nausea medication to even want to eat. The side effect of the phenergan (anti-nausea med) is that it makes me really sleepy.

I had a one week follow up appointment yesterday morning. The Dr. says that my recovery is taking longer because I had a lot of trauma to my abdomen in such a short period of time. She compared it to my stomach being 9 months pregnant. Of course, I feel like I've been home for a week already and I should be up and ready to go back to work. She assured me that it is normal that the healing is taking time.

I'm tired of the nausea and night sweats. Thank God most of the "real pain" has subsided and I have not taken any pain medication since Saturday night. Ibuprofen 800 mg has worked enough on the inflammation and the dull pains that remain in my abdomen.

She also put me on a high protein diet for the next few days to help build my strength up. I really want to try and go back to work tomorrow, I feel guilty not working, and I think that getting back into some kind of normal routine could not be a bad thing.

I'm sorry to all of my clients that I have inconvenienced through this whole process. Hair stylist are not allowed to be sick; not this long.

Thanks again for your love, support and prayers. They are much appreciated and lovingly accepted.

On The Mend

Today was a much better day than the day before and I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better than today.

I am still on such medication that I'm forced to lay around groggy most of the day and end up wide awake in the middle of the night waiting on my night medications to take effect.

I think I have watched enough "Everybody Loves Raymond" to know that I, for one, am glad that I don't have to deal with in-laws and a meddling family. I think some opinions would be welcome, but all the time with the unsolicited advice from the nosy mom across the street? It does make for funny television though. The plastic on the sofa? LOL . I don't know how I managed to miss this show when it was in regular broadcast.

Mark was off to Minneapolis this morning and left me with nurse maid Kelli, who took very good care of me today. She made me breakfast, lunch and dinner & I went for a couple of walks to the corner and back to keep things moving along.

I am really hoping to be back to work by Saturday, but I don't think I'm going to be rushing things and listen to my body; it'll tell me when I'm ready.

That brings me to my next point of listening to your body and that inner voice we all have that tells us what we should or should not do. If your body is telling you it does not feel right; kick and scream until someone listens to you. They wanted to send me home the day after the first surgery, telling me everything was "normal". Had I listen to them, I might have died. Maybe a little dramatic; I believe that I could have really gotten a bad infection and truly could have died had gotten bad enough, especially if I kept reassuring myself what the Dr.'s were telling me, "Oh it's normal, the pain will go away in time."

In short, listen to your body. Don't let them dismiss you so easily. If you know something is not right, you know something is not right. Keep at it until you know things are right. We can only do what we can do. They are only going to do what they "have" to do. Michael's [Crumpton] dad had all this crazy footage of stint wiring left in his body after a routine surgery, he almost died. Had he not insisted that more test be run, he could and would have died.

If I'm going, I'm going kicking and screaming all the way.

Here's to good health.

Drowsy now, nighty night.

Home Is Where The Healing Begins

It is very nice to be home, but by no means does being home mean I'm healed.

I have been through a rough & tough eleven days and suspect that it will take a bit of time for the complete healing process, well, to complete.

I'm taking it easy, still having a bit of pain and discomfort, but in time it will pass. Until then, lots of sofa & bed rest. My follow up appointments are next week and stint removal is scheduled for two weeks from now. Why can't they just leave the stint in I wonder? A good question that I will definitely be asking.

My puppy babies were so excited that I walked through the door; I thought Chance (our Chihuahua) was going to spin himself up into a poof of smoke. He is sleeping at my side now. Not sure if he choose to be in here on the sofa with me because he really missed me, or the fact that I have some Ritz crackers that I have been nibbling on next to me on the ottoman tray. Either way, he's 4 1/2 lbs of love and joy and I'm happy to have him at my side.

Hailey & Jackson (our Boxers) were equally excited to see me. Hailey (65 lbs...) gives big hugs around the neck (duh, that's what a hug is) and Jackson (86 lbs...) just ra ra ra ra ra ra ra, talks a lot; his way of telling me welcome home daddy, or maybe it's ra ra ra ra ra ra ra, can you give a treat real quick since your here and standing by the pantry door.

Kelli is playing the role of my post op home nurse since Mark has to leave on a business trip this morning and will be gone for a couple of days. My bell needs a new ringer though, cuz she sleeps harder than anyone I know. :)

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Hugs and kisses....I'm drowsy again.

GOING HOME!!

My team (literally 12) of doctors just came in and said that everything is looking much, much better and they see no reason why I cannot go home today!

I ask if they all missed me this weekend while they were off (like 8 of them were off) and they all cracked up, so I guess I have not lost my sense of humor through it all.

Mark and I have had to postpone our trip to Costa Rica for obvious reasons; I feel bad that his 40th is not going to be what he wanted it to be. We will probably go somewhere, just more along the lines within the US. No zip-lining for me for another couple months or so. Thank God he bought travelers insurance.

I'm so happy, I'm going home!

Monday Morning -Still?!?!? Eleventh Day In Hospital

The 11th day in UC Davis.

I will start by saying that I do feel so much better since this procedure on Friday evening.

My stomach has finally waking up and I have a bit of an appetite. I actually ate a little chicken noodle soup and held it all down perfectly well so far.

I'm walking a little more today to make sure things stay good before they actually send me home, which I'm really hoping will be today, if they think I'm ready.

Although I'm happy about the 20 pounds I lost this week; really not the way I wanted it to happen.

Mark has been the best through this entire ordeal, with the exception of having me drive myself to the E.R. that night. Poor Mark, I'm never going to let him live that down. He remembers

the ordeal I went through last year with my appendix; being sent home and then back in for 8-9 days because of an obstruction. I think in his mind, he thought if I waited until my Dr.'s office opened, that my primary physician would admit me to his office or something? He has been by by side the entire time; listening to me moan and cry about the pain, helping me bathe and encouraging me to walk as much as I can. Thank you again Mark, I love you with all my heart.

Thank you to everyone who has been following this blog, and sending me well wishes through Face-Book and Twitter. I have a wonderful support group of friends and extended family here in California. Being from Alabama and so far away from my blood family, it has really meant the absolute world to me.

Third Sedation is Hopefully A Charm

Going into my ninth day in the hospital. What a week it has been. I have never, ever, never, never, ever been in as much pain as I have been in this week.

My surgeon told me that I would start to feel better, however, it would not be today. I'm on Dilaudid, which is an analgesic narcotic with an addiction liability similar to that of morphine. It is apparent within 15 minutes and remains in effect for more than 5 hours. Dilaudid is approximately 8 times more potent on a milligram basis than morphine. Often called "drug store heroin" on the streets. I'm taking it intravenously to ease the pain from the surgeries and different stab wounds that have been made to my body this week.

I am surely hoping to cross a bridge today.

Update on hospital stay

Here's the latest on my condition for those whom are interested. They put me back on my personal pain control meds (thank God) they are only thing that were somewhat dulling the pain. After pleading and insisting with the "team" of doctors that there was something else wrong with me, they ran an ultrasound yesterday with the plan that if anything was abnormal they would run some sort of nuclear scan to take more pictures of my abdomen.

Needless to say, at first, they said, "oh, everything is normal and we are closely watching your labs to make certain that if anything changes we will know about it."

After another miserable night, very little sleep, the Dr.'s came in about 5:30a.m. and then again around 7:00 a.m., both times seeing me in agonizing pain and doubled over crying; only to have one of the little "baby" doctors tell me, "oh, everything is progressing as it should and things were finally moving in the right direction." I thought, BULLSHIT!

Long story short, they did take me down for the radioactive imaging around 11 a.m. did find a TON of bile floating around in my cavity! Dear God, finally an answer to the excruciating pain that they kept telling me was "normal"!

They brought me back up, I signed a release to perform another procedure and they wheeled me down to put in two drainage tubes. I had already filled four by the time I got back to my room.

Tomorrow they will do a scope down my throat through my bowels and place a stint inside my bile duct, so it can heal. In six weeks the stint will be out and I should be back to (as) normal as I can be.

More later, my pain meds are making me drowsy.

Another Day in the Hospital

Well, day 3 in the hospital. I am feeling a little bit better today, although I have not officially "passed wind" yet. The morphine plays tricks on your mind and during my visit with Mark and Kelli tonight, I suspect that I said some crazy ass shit. I caught them laughing and Kelli was almost in tears when I looked up one time.

Anyhow, I'm determined to get out of this place tomorrow. As I said before, I don't want to go home until I know I'm not going to have any complications. I feel like tonight is the night that I will "pass the wind" and feel much better for it.

I hate coming off of the morphine and pain pills though, it really plays tricks on your mind and although it really helps with the pain, and I think pain medicine is a wonderful thing, I cannot understand the addiction that people have to narcotics. It makes me feel like shit, when I'm not actually in pain.

I ordered French Toast for breakfast, and I am looking forward to eating it. I will walk the halls tonight, determined to pass the wind and wake up my bowels.

On another note, I signed up for Twitter today. I was bored and really wanted to know what all the "buzz" has been about. It's a bit confusing to me right now, perhaps because I'm new to it, perhaps it really is confusing. Either way, if I like it, I'll use it; if I don't, it'll be like myspace, and just kind of fall to the wayside. Hell, I Face Book and blog, is that not enough?

Maybe I'm hoping some Hollywood producer reads my blog and decides to write a play or a movie based on it. Stranger things have happened. I'm not saying that the subject of my surgery and recovery would make an interesting blog, it was the catalyst that I needed in order to actually start this online journal.

My stories will be much more interesting when I start writing daily about my life in the salon. I hear some pretty interesting and goofy ass stories working around people all day. Of course, I will rarely use real names, but if I say that, even if I do, you'll never know.

My silly stomach

So last year, I had my appendix out. Apparently it was perforated, which is just a fancy word for ruptured.

When they sent me home one day after my surgery, I thought my problems with my stomach had been solved. Boy was I wrong. I was back in he hospital emergency room within 48 hours of being sent home. I had an obstruction and had the pleasure of a hose being shoved up my nose and down the back of my throat to purge what was in my stomach by way if this rather large hose.

After this was done, I was till experiencing a lot of pain; they did extensive nuclear scanning of my gallbladder to make sure I did not have gall stones. To my relief the did discover the stones and I thought, well, at least all this will be over with once the remove my gallbladder. Wrong again. the jerk ass surgeon I had, informed me that most everyone had gall stones and that mine would remain. I was sort of relived because he really was a jerk ass surgeon with no bedside manners at all and I really did not want to have him operating on me again.

Fast forward one year. Thursday June 11th was a rather normal day. i worked, came home, grilled steaks and had a yogurt for dessert. I even played a little 2 Live Crew and danced around a little. I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up around 1 a.m. to move to the bedroom. I noticed that my stomach was hurting, like someone was punching me in my stomach and would not take their fist out. I tried to move around and ignore it, even stuck my finger down my throat, made myself sick and thought I would feel better. Wrong again.

Finally around 4:30 a.m. I decided that I could not take the pain any longer. I got dressed and drove myself to the emergency room where I waited for about 3 1/2 hours to be seen. I filled them in on the appendix episode from the previous year, informed them of the gall stones that I knew I had and hoped they would be able to relive some of the excruciating pain I was having. Here's the problem with emergency rooms; they want to get you in and out as soon a possible, I'm convinced they get something for a quick catch and release program. I however was not going so quietly this time around. I told them I was leaving the country in a few weeks and I really wanted to get to the bottom of what this pain was. They ran some more nuclear scans on my stomach and did a few ultra sounds to eliminate things one by one. The surgeon that was on call that day made the decision that my gallbladder should come out, since I had, had a few bouts with it over the last several years, getting worse and longer each time. The thing with a gallbladder attack is that sometimes they last ten minutes, sometimes they last longer; way longer as I learned.

I was rushed up to surgery Friday night and the whole thing was over in about an hour. The whole thing being, the surgery, not the pain or recovery.

They wanted to send me home the next day, which would have been fine and dandy, had I felt better. I was still not passing gas or having any sort of b.m. (yuck, i know). I insisted that I was not ready to go home and that I should stay until I had a b.m., they were reluctant about it, but I insisted because I had already gone that route the previous year with my appendix, being right back at the e.r. two days later. I DID NOT want to be back in that boat again. It's like starting all over from step one again.

Let me tell you, thank God I was an insistent little prick, because, just as I had suspected, I had a terrible episode with the gas pressures that were pumped into my stomach for the surgery. I was literally laying on the floor crying like a baby in excruciating pain. At least now, I was already in the hospital and relief would be sooner than starting all over in the e.r.. It still took a good little while (maybe an hour) to really start getting something for the pain, because they had to put a call in to the dr. to see what they had permission to give me.

In the end, they (well one of the dr.'s) admitted that they started me on solid foods, way too soon.

I'm still laying in the hospital now, waiting on the gas to pass, I swear, I'm not letting them send me out before I think it's safe to go. Wish me luck.