Calvin's Weblog

Cut, Cut, Snip, Snip, stitch, stitch, stitch...

All done.
Exactly twenty-four hours ago, I heard "Calvin, Calvin... it's time to wake up... we're all done!"
"Huh? Already? But we didn't even... you asked where I'd be today if I wasn't here in the hospital, and I said 'at work' and you said 'what do you do?' and I said 'internet security' and then you said 'Well, you certainy don't have to worry about finding work, do you... and I was about to reply 'as long as there are hackers, I'll have a job' but instead you interupted with "Calvn, it's time to wake up" ... how did that happen?"

"That was an hour and a half ago. We're all done. Everything went perfectly."
"Wow."
"You wanted to see your gallbladder, right? Here it is..."
"That little thing was causing me so much pain? It looks like a cocktail weenie!"

Slowly the anesthetic started to come out, and became aware of my surroundings. It was the strangest feeling. As you may have guessed, I've never had surgery before. I've never had a general anesthetic before. I didn't know what to expect... except, for some reason, I thought that I was supposed to count backwards from 100 or something - but we never even got to that. Thank goodness! I didn't even get a chance to get nervous. Whew! Ah, but as I became clearer, I also became more aware of the pain... I've got four incisions, and they all hurt.

After the surgery was over I was under observation for another 6 hours, and finally got home about 5pm. I couldn't walk - I had to be wheeled out. I had been given so many drugs that day, my head was swimming... I started with two pills - one to settle my nerves and another to settle my stomach. Oh, there were also my two blood pressure pills... then there was a shot in my stomach, which was an anti-coagulant, and there were two IV drips - saline, and an antibiotic. Then came the demerol, and the anethetic. I woke up there were two shots in my ass - one was demerol, the other an anti-inflamitory. Then two T4s, followed by two T3s every four hours.

BUT, I made it! I can only eat stuff like popcicles, broth, jello, applesauce, yogurt, juice, but fortunately I'm not having any kinds of digestive problems with that. Apparently some people are nausious for a couple of weeks when anything hits their stomach, but so far today I've had two popcicles, a cup of tappioca, a cup of apple sauce, two glasses of cranberry juice, and a cup of chicken broth, and my stomach feels fine... my 'belly' on the other hand, is a world of hurt. My incisions only finally stopped bleeding this morning and I'm so bloated and bruised and inflamed from being pumped full of CO2 gass... I can't even get myself in and out of bed yet - but I'm feeling better this morning than I was last night, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be even better.

This typing is actually making me woozy right now - I've gotta go lie down. I actually had to rest a bit after typing the first couple paragraphs, but I'm feeling gross again...

Anyway - just wanted everyone to know I made it through the surgery in one piece (okay, I guess technically I'm in two pieces now) - and while my thoughts may sound a little franetic, I'm mostly doing okay. I'm just going to have to rest more, and take it easy.

Ciao for now.

Posted by Calvin at March 30, 2005 10:47 AM