Road to Recovery

Okay bear with me as I'm going to try and update my blog.  Typing has been difficult on the computer so I've been trying to update Facebook as much as possible as it is very easy for me to do with the IPhone.

Post op on Thursday proved to be very difficult.  I wasn't totally nauseous as I just didn't feel good.  I asked the nurses for saltines and was told I wasn't allowed to have anything outside a liquid diet.  So we started with a can of "sprite" and I managed to get half a cup of Jello down by evening time.  Well shortly after Dad and Rita left to go find dinner and head back to the hotel I was sick to my stomach.  Later after Meghan left we thought it might be a good idea for me to sit up in bed and dangle my feet over the edge as my Breast Nurse had advised, that was EXTREMELY difficult and very painful.  Brian and I just weren't sure how to maneuver my body around to accomplish this task, and as strong as I thought my ab muscles are, it's near impossible to sit your entire upper body up from a 45 degree angle using NO upper body what so ever.  Well we somehow figured it out, and unfortunately that was enough to make me sick again.

My only complaint about the hospital care was that I wasn't on "ordered" pain meds, the nurses were relying on me to ask for them to be administered when I needed them.  So unfortunately with everything else going on I completely forgot to request meds.  By about 2 am after having gotten VERY little to no sleep all night my pain level was probably about an 8-9.  The room was hot and I kept sweating, the window was open some, but we were on the 9th floor so we heard the helicopter coming in throughout the night, and with the air circulators on my legs the machine kept going on and off and it just WAS NOT a fun time.  So I asked for pain medication hoping that would at least help me sleep.  THANKFULLY my night nurse was very keen on the idea of me eating crackers before taking the pain meds, we tried an oral first with no luck so she ended up giving me some morphine, and then was able to get me a second dose of morphine a few hours later which was what I needed to get the pain back under control.

Around 6 am they came back in to check vitals and check on me.  It was decided at that point to go ahead and start the oral pain medications to make sure I would be able to tolerate them at home.  She took the catheter out, which was both a blessing and a cause of anxiety as now I'd have to get out of bed everytime I had to go to the bathroom.  I decided at that point to just go ahead and bit the bullet and try getting out of bed at that point.  We sat the bed upright as much as I could tolerate, I spent a bit of time shimmying and scooting my butt and my legs to the edge of the bed.  Then it took both the nurse and Brian lifting my back to get me sitting upright.  After sitting on the edge of the bed for a bit we tried to venture to the bathroom.  I made it to just around the foot of the bed where I became VERY dizzy and just about passed out.  We settled me into a visitors chair where I proceeded to sit for about 2 hours.  During that time my Breast Health nurse came up to check on me, she was happy to see I was out of bed, but she commented later that I looked pretty rough.  The bladder finally got the better of me and pushed me to get out of the chair and venture to the bathroom.  I ended up settling back into the recliner in the room and there I hung out the rest of the day until getting released to go home.  They changed my dressings, which now consists of a 4x4 gauze pad covering each drainage tube site.  After Rita & Dad came to check up on me I ended up taking a short walk up and down the hallway of the hospital.

At this point I was just plain TIRED of the hospital, I could see Brian was getting very restless and stir crazy.  I paged my nurse around 2 o'clock and told her I was ready to go home.  I was nervous about leaving the safety of the hospital, but I figured we were doing fine managing the pain medication and I was eating solid foods that were staying down, so there was no reason we couldn't manage that at home. Brian felt comfortable (relatively speaking) with the dressing change and the drainage tube care so I decided home was a better place to be.  We got home about 4 and I had Margaret come stay with me so Brian could run to CVS and fill the prescriptions.  Another mistake on my part, I should have had them give me another dosage of meds before leaving the hospital, because by the time I got home I was overdue and feeling it.  Margaret and I had a nice little visit and then once the pain meds were on board I was down for the count for most of the night.  I slept off and on with Brian waking me up to get food and medications in me (I'm also on an oral antibiotic while the drainage tubes are in, and I have an anti-nausea which I haven't needed).  Around 1am he successfully took care of the drainage tubes for me.

I wanted desperately to take a shower yesterday, I'm still painted orange from the iodine, and my hair is used to being washed once a day, plus I just smelled like hospital still.   I was VERY nervous about taking everything off, seeing myself for the first time, and worried that the shower would actually be uncomfortable.  I know they said it was safe, I also don't want to do something wrong that will cause an infection or a hiccup in my recovery.  So I think mind over matter got the better of me, and as soon as we had everything situated to get ready to get in the shower I got very light headed and had to sit down.  I sat in the bathroom for a bit, but realized that I wasn't going to be able to do it, so we moved back to the recliner where Brian did the best he could with washclothes.  I felt cleaner and refreshed, but I'm still covered in iodine and still feeling greasy from lack of bathing.  He changed my dressing, my support bra and my pj's and it made a world of difference.  Had a very nice visit with my Aunt Karen and cousin January, they brought me some cute blouses and cardigans I should be able to wear once I'm actually putting real clothes on!!!  Spent the afternoon up and visiting them so by the time they left the wonderful dinner Margaret and Mac brought over was ready, and so we had some dinner and I settled in for a 2 hour nap!!

I know the nights haven't been great for Brian, as he's waking me up every 2-4 hours depending on which medication I'm due for, but I am actually sleeping soundly through most of the night.  In fact I've usually fallen back to sleep in the time between his alarm going off and him getting my medications ready to take.  I even managed to sleep in until about 9 am.  I took a short nap around lunch then decided to go head and get up and move around some.  I take little "walks" around the apartment.  I go in and visit each room and just kinda wander around for awhile.  There were boxes that needed to go out to the dumpster since he had ordered some new bedding and pillows for me that came in the mail while we were at the hospital, so I suggested I walk out to the dumpster with him.  I felt pretty good so we actually took one loop around the buildings that circle the pond.  I have liked the company, and the walks, and look forward to more, but as expected it just makes me tired.  I'm not over doing it but I'm doing everything that I can at this point to continue to get my strength back and try and get as back to normal as I can sooner rather than later.  I honestly don't lay around feeling sorry for myself anyways, so this isn't going to change anything.  I'm going to continue to fight through this as hard as my body will possibly let me fight.

Meghan is due for a visit soon so I should wrap this up, I accidentally locked her out of the apartment on Thursday night by giving her the wrong key, so she decided to just come back and visit me today on her way back home to Dayton after being with her family for Easter instead.  I'm glad because I'm much more coherent and can be a little more active in the visit.  Plus as much as I know Brian will do anything I ask him to help me do, I figure it would be better to get a girl to wash my hair, dry and style it for me, and shave my legs,  then to ask Brian to do it.  Besides I'm sure he'll need to do it at some point this week anyways.  Looking forward to my mini shower more than you could possibly know!

Thanks again to everyone who has been sending cards, flowers and just general well wishes.  If it weren't for everyone that is supporting me right now, this would not be as easy of a challenge as it has been.  I can't possibly thank everyone enough for the support!