Post-Surgical Ramblings

Welcome to my new Blog! It is here that I will spend my time relaying the events of my life to you all. I will begin with my most recent run in with the world of medicine...

Last week, Dr. Danburi performed a gallbladder removal on yours truly. (At least, I'm pretty sure that was his name. Every time I met him, I was on some type of pain medication.) Such a trivial surgery, really, compared to some... and yet I was having an anxiety attack prior to it that warranted injecting my IV with Verset (happy drugs). I'm starting to heal, I can tell because I have this undying need to tear off the first few layers of my skin and scratch what lies beneath. I can also tell because a real meal sounded good today for the first time in a week. A tilapia fillet and a side of whole grain spaghetti. Mmmmm. It actually tasted REALLY good. Almost as good as the chocolate pudding that was my first solid-ish food in the hospital. After several days of nothing but clear liquids, chocolate pudding is like a feast!

As for the non-food side of things.... The vicodin is good. :o) Actually, in all honesty, I'm getting tired of the buzz. Being constantly stoned for three days straight... I don't know how people live like this. I've cut back on the number of pills and the frequency at which I take them, and I'm doing okay as far as pain management goes. Less queasy too.

My biggest complaint (aside from not being able to snuggle my little snugglekins) is that I'll be sitting there having a conversation with someone, and then suddenly my eyes start rolling back in my head and before I know it, they're offering me a pillow! It happened earlier today with Mike's dad. He was talking to me, and seemingly out of the blue asked "Do you need to lay down?" "Is it that obvious?" was my response. The answer was a chuckled "yes" and so I decided I must have fallen asleep with my eyes open (or maybe closed for all I know... this WAS before I cut back on my vicodin). So I took that as my cue to nap for a little over two hours. I awoke feeling groggy, but much better...which seems to be the story every time. I wonder how much longer the sudden bouts of exhaustion will last?

Some of you may be wondering exactly how this FEELS. I am missing an organ after all, and it must be weird to be without an organ. Well, to respond to your curiosity, YES it feels weird. I feel like there's an empty space there....and empty space that hurts. I think I can show you exactly where it used to be. The weirdest thing is, they pulled it out through an incision that's about an inch in diameter. Maybe an inch. And it had 25-30 bee-bee sized stones in it. I'd like to know how it fit. I have a hunch as to which one it was removed through, simply because the one by my sternum is severely bruised, where the others are not so much. Out of the four incisions, it hurts the worst by far. This could be because of the gravitational pressure from my breasts as well...tough to say. I'm just glad it's over and I'm on the road to recovery and, thus far, no adverse side effects. A little indigestion, but as I understand it, that's entirely normal the first couple weeks til the body adjusts to not having a bile pump anymore. Nothing that I've eaten has really made me sick though, so I think I'm going to be okay.

On the upside of everything, I'm now being forced to eat low fat foods (at least for the next couple weeks) and I'm steadily on the skinny-jeans road because of it. I feel thin for the first time since October of 2008. And maybe I'm not THIN per say, but I'm almost thin. I couldn't tell you exactly how much I weigh right now because I'm not sure. Before I went on a three-day clear liquid diet in the hospital, I was about 152. That was prior to surgery as well. So, I could be a few pounds lighter now. I'll find out at my follow up in 2 weeks how much weight this whole ordeal has caused me to lose. It's the silver lining, so I'm enjoying it as much as possible. If I'm lucky, by mid March, I'll be able to fit into my size 8 jeans again... Then I can be hot for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party! Hoorah!

On a slightly less vain note, my little ones are doing well. Hayley is so close to crwaling it's not even funny (yes, she did just turn 4 months, but she's very strong!), but for the mean time she's settling with rolling around the living room. She's finally able to fuss herself to sleep, mostly because she's become a full-blown thumb-sucker. It's cute as the dickens....but then again, ask me how I feel about it a year or two from now. She's getting baptized in March, and I'm really excited for that! Hannah is doing very well with her kindergarten preparations. We're getting pretty excited for kindergarten roundup in April, followed by her FIFTH BIRTHDAY PARTY. That's right, five years old already. I don't know where it went, either. All I know is she's the most beautiful 5 year old I've ever met, and I'm SO proud of her. We'll be having a big birthday party to celebrate this "landmark" birthday, so stay tuned for info on that!

Mike is still slow at work, but him and I are slowly starting to climb out of this slump we've been in for the last couple months. He's been amazingly understanding through all that's happened, and he's done his best to take care of me any way he can. Hopefully, I'll start feeling good enough now to take care of him once in a while :o)

Well, my eyes are starting to have difficulty adjusting and focusing again, so any second my narcoleptic ass will start dozing off and I'll wind up waking up with my a space bar imprint on my forehead. SO, I should probably draw this to a close. Good night, God Bless, Thank you for reading... and here are a few words of wisdom a dear friend passed along to me, which I will now share with you:

REMEMBER MY FRIENDS: The difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer....................................



........................................ is the taste.