I was afraid to go to sleep on Tuesday. I don't really know why. I was just afraid. I even took some Melatonin and I still couldn't stay asleep. So, I stayed awake watching Grey's Anatomy on Netflix. Thankfully, I was able to kind of crash at 10am because my body was exhausted.
I was so scared going into the Surgical Center. Afraid of the unknown. I mean, could you imagine getting a $5,000 Medical credit card only to get a diagnosis of "I don't know"? That's a lot of money. Not something that my family has. But, what could I do? I couldn't control what the doctor found or if he would find anything at all. I just tried to accept that what would happen would happen. Everything would still be okay.
They had me take off all of my clothes and put on a hospital gown. Then, it was just the routine stuff. They checked my vitals and asked me all the necessary questions. Do you drink or smoke? Do you have tattoos? Have you had surgery before? Stuff like that. The doctor, anesthesiologist, and nurses were all so nice. They kept up conversations to keep my nerves calm. I'm sure my heart rate was pretty high. The last thing I remember is the nurse saying, "I'm going to give you the little cocktail that the anesthesiologist talked to you about." And I must have fallen asleep pretty quickly. The whole procedure took about 45 minutes.
I woke up super confused. I was pretty uncomfortable. The nurse kept administering pain medicine to me, but I guess it was making me nauseous along the way. Yeah...I'm pretty sensitive to pain meds. The nurse kept insisting that I needed to pee before I left the hospital. If I wasn't able to go, then she was going to have to use a catheter. I have never tried so hard to pee in my life. It was crazy. I couldn't even feel my urethra to trigger the sensation to go. I just lay there trying to remember how to make my urethra work. The nurse pushed more and more fluids through the IV and gave me a Coca-cola to drink to wake me up more. It took about 45 minutes before I was finally able to go. I was so weak when trying to move from the bed to the wheelchair to the toilet. Even when sitting on the toilet, it took about 5 minutes for me to remember how to go. (Golly, I could only imagine what a toddler goes through with potty training.) My appointment was at 12:30pm and we got home at around 5pm.
Funny stuff I did while still under the influence of anesthesia:
- When my husband walked into the room, I started touching his face and hair.
- Apparently I was telling Andrew that "this hurts" and gave him a mean face. Andrew: What's wrong? Are you angry? Me: No Andrew: Are you sad? Me: No. Andrew: Well, you're giving me this >=[ face. Me: I don't know.
- I told my husband that he was a member of the Backstreet Boys.
Everyone's pain is different. Everyone has different pain tolerances. Each laparoscopy is different. For me, the doctor made an incision in my navel, another incision five inches below that, and one more on the right side of my pelvis.
- One day post-op: Most of the pain is in my navel. Super uncomfortable. Lots of pain. It seems like it go deep into the pit of my stomach. My abdomen is really tender where it hurts to even touch it. Laughing and coughing hurts. Even raising my voice hurts. Anything that requires me to use a lot of my abdomen just hurts. Sit ups are probably out of the question. I'm a bit bloated and it all just hurts, but that's okay because I now know what the problem is!
- Four days post-op: I woke up and I thought that I was better. I was able to take almost steps when I went to the bathroom. I finally regained complete control of my urethra (for some reason, it was numb for a few days and I had to really force the flow to start). I climbed into the shower and stayed there in there for 10 minutes. When I got out, I was able to get dressed. Soon after that, I just felt a ton of pain. I'll tell ya, recovering from the Laparoscopy has been much harder than recovering from my c-section. My NP prescribed Hydromorphine because I'm in a lot of pain and the Hydrocodone just wasn't cutting it.
The doctor found a bit of endometriosis, a cyst, and some scarring (possibly from the c-section I had with Kayson). My husband said that the doctor was able to remove all of it. I have a follow up appointment in two weeks. Hopefully things will get better from here. I have no experience with endometriosis, but I know that it affects a lot of women. I know that it makes it more difficult to get pregnant. It's possible that I will keep getting ovarian cysts. I know that this wasn't my first year. I have had at least one other cyst this year.
How I'm Feeling
Emotionally, I'm just happy to have an answer for all this pain. It's been hard for me to accept the fact that recovery is going to take a while. I just want to be up and resume normal life. It's hard to be dependent on other people. I'm trying to ask for help, though. I mean, it's not like I have any choice. lol. Kayson has really been wanting to snuggle with me, but goodness gracious, a three year old with his elbows in my stomach is not exactly comfortable. He has been giving me tons of kisses, though. I love that little boy. I'm very blessed to have family and friends who care for me. I joined a Chronic Pain Support Group on Facebook and it has been beyond amazing.
