Playing Catch-Up

It's been exactly a week since my surgery. And really, a lots gone down since then. To catch you up...

My surgery was scheduled for 9am last Friday. They got me all ready, put the IV in my arm. But apparently the guy before me had the "Gallbladder from Hell" (no joke, that's what the nurse called it), and I didn't actually get wheeled into the OR until 2 hours later. Needless to say, I was a bit anxious.

Once the anesthesia wore off, I counted four small incisions on my belly. What they don't tell you is that when you wake up to from surgery, you can expect to have shoulder and neck pain due to the air they pump inside of you for room to operate. Let's just say, dilaudid was my friend.

In addition to dilaudid, they had given me two Norco pills, which are basically extra-strength Vicodin. ...And I knew in the past that Vicodin had a tendency to make me itch, but the only other option was Darvocet and Darvocet gives me really bad headaches. Itching or a massive headache? I chose the latter. ...I was already itching before I left the hospital and was given intraveneous Benadryl (that did absolutely nothing for me). When I got home, I was taking them every 4 hours on the hour and by 6pm my face was bright red from all of the scratching. After leaving the on-call doctor a message with no response, Matt drove me to Urgent Care. By then the itching had subsided a bit, in part because I was holding a wet washcloth to my face nonstop, but also because the medication was wearing off... Which meant the meds were wearing off. And there I was, 8 hours after surgery, walking around Walgreens, waiting for my new prescription to be filled. Can you tell I'm new at this?

So fast forward, past all the pain and laying in bed and eating as little as possible, and my mom was in town on Monday. She immediately started to grocery shop and cook. And clean. And do laundry. And I can never just take gifts gracefully... I always seem to find some kind of guilt to have over it. The truth was, I was in no position to be walking around... And though the pain killers led me to believe I was feeling better, the opposite would become very evident. I figured I would be up and about at least by Wednesday. And that's when the girl's week of shopping and lunch and salons would begin! But it seemed by 2pm every day, I just hit a wall. We did manage to fit lunch in on Thursday with Kristy, and before her flight today, I was able to treat her to a mani/pedi for Mother's Day. We now have a fridge FULL of delicious leftovers and some very neatly folded laundry.

In terms of people taking care of me, I feel like I had the A-Team, with a nice handoff by Matt to Mom on Monday when he picked her up, and Tuesday when he went back to work. A girl can only be so lucky.

And here I sit on my beloved recliner, feeling worlds better than I did a few days ago... But still with some more healing to go. My thought was that I'd be back to normal by now and head back to work on Monday... But it hasn't exactly worked out that way. Being on disability, I have the option of taking a few extra days off. And being that I can't sustain an 8-hour day of nothingness, I certainly couldn't sustain an 8-hour day of work.

Looks like it's just me and the soaps.