YAY! I’m home.
This is going to be a very quick post. I promise I’ll come back and add in all the details later, (funny and otherwise) but for now, I’ll keep it short and sweet.
As Nick mentioned, I have had a couple of bad days. I had several very nauseous spells that were really awful. I don’t think anyone likes to be nauseous, but to be honest, I usually do okay with it. The past few days, I have been terrified of vomiting because my incision is quite large and it hurts. It hurts even more when you add vomiting. The strain on my incision just simply hurts. On Friday, I got an awful headache that was quickly heading to nauseousness. The meds the Nurse gave me did not stop me from feeling sick, and I struggled for quite awhile. I had an even worse nauseous battle on Saturday morning at around 3:30. Luckily, the night nurse was awesome. Lorilyn gave me the same meds the previous nurse gave me. Of course, they did not help me, and I started to vomit and moan, cry, etc. She heard me a return to my room immediately. She was very proactive and call the doctor immediately to see if she could give me something else. She did not realize that Dr. B had give us permission to call him and not the on-call doctor, so she spoke with Dr. On-Call. He allowed her to give me the new meds, which helped me sleep and stopped the nauseousness. The new stuff unfortunately made me very tired for about 10 hours. (It was like being shot with a tranquilizer dart, but I am not complaining–it truly saved me.)
When Dr. B came in to check on me on Saturday, he prescribed a med for me to take to prevent nauseousness. I explained to him that I really had no appetite, and I thought it had a lot to do with the nauseousness. I asked him if he would allow me to bring in non-hospital food to eat, and he said that was fine. I seriously considered kissing him full on the mouth. I really think the outside food made me feel better. I was finally able to get some of my strength back when I was allowed to have good, tasty food. (I’m not knocking the hospital food, but it was not great for me; they listed me as “vegetarian and picky”. I think the Peanut Butter and Banana Milkshake that my Dad got me from Cook-out was really key to the new and improved me yesterday. Also, I did not take any percocet yesterday because I am convinced that it and my empty stomach was what made me so sick.
Yesterday was pretty good.
The general surgery, who did a portion of my surgery, deemed by bowels well enough to go home today. (I’m going to call the General Surgery by the name of Dr. Colon because I don’t know his real name and he worked on my colon. Sorry Dr. Colon; I’m usually really good with names, but you introduced yourself while I was sleepy and high. Please forgive me.) Once he discovered that I was able to keep liquids on my stomach for 24 hours, he released me from the IV and told me I was fine to go home this afternoon.
Dr. B came in around 12, and he happily released me as soon as he heard Dr. Colon released me. I was so excited.
I got home at about 1 or 2. I will stay here, in Apex, tonight because Dr. B wants to see me tomorrow. He thinks it is best to stay here tonight just in case something goes wrong. Also, he is going to take my staples out tomorrow. I am supposed to call the office in the morning to schedule a time to see Dr. B. After my appointment, he says he will allow me to go back to White Lake with my parents. I’ll stay there until at least Friday. I may come back to Apex on Friday to stay with Nick for the weekend. (I’ll probably go back to White Lake on Sunday) Dr. B says I will not be allowed to drive or work for two weeks, which feels pretty spot on right now.
Here are a few things about my past few days (more details to follow):
- WakeMed Cary was really great. The staff was awesome. From my prep nurses on Friday, to the nurse who cared from directly after my surgery, to the nurses and techs who cared for me during my stay–they were GREAT. We were especially thankful for Kristen and Beth on my first night, who were very gentle. We really enjoyed Lindy, who was very friendly and added her own personal stories to help me through the past couple of days. And, Lorilyn was an absolute angel when she saved me from my vomiting spell.
- I have a renewed respect for Dr. B. He was really great this past week. He has been very caring and very gentle with me. He came to the hospital to check on me each day despite the fact that he was not on call. He even gave us his private number to call in case I had another bad night. I can’t stress enough how great he was. Today my dad even said that he really liked Dr. B–that’s pretty great.
- We have received so much love and support over the past few weeks. We are very grateful. Thanks to everyone for you emails, text messages, facebook message, phone calls, flowers, and cards.
That’s all for now. I’ll try to start to retrace the past few days to include some details.
