My last surgery

My surgery has been completed for almost a month now. I was a little hesitant (and exhausted) to update, but I think it’s about that time. I’m going to add a slight disclaimer to this entry, when I update I try to stay light and add some positivity. But this surgery was no picnic and I don’t plan on sugarcoating all that much. It friggen' sucked.

The morning of the surgery we drove into the city very early. My sister woke up bright (dark) and early, and drove to our house to accompany us. When we walked outside to get into the car, every light was on inside of our neighbor’s house and her ADT alarm was going off. I was still sleepy but remember feeling really awkward about it. A few years ago her house got broken into (hence the ADT system now) and ever since I’ve felt really nervous about walking to my back door late at night. It’s silly but when coming home in the dark I actually pop my car key out and place it in between my knuckles in case the thief should return. I just KNOW he’d be terrified of a twenty-something year old girl with beefy guns and a Volkswagen keychain in between her fierce knucks.

Off track huh? The whole point was that I still feel bad about not calling the cops or sticking around until the ADT patrol came or something. Regardless, I had my own battles to worry about that day.

We got to the hospital and I was given my brand new stiff papery gown. Even though it was extremely uncomfortable, I was happy that it was new for once. A few months ago I watched a special on TLC called Crazy Sexy Cancer, and one of the girls that is featured was getting her regular scans done. She approached the huge stack of gowns and said something along the lines of “…a lot of people have used these gowns, I bet they are old.” She pauses, thinking for a moment…and says, ”I wonder how many of those people are dead now.” I can honestly say that I’ve had that exact same thought all too many times. Hence, my excitement over a crisp gown.

Meghan met up with us at the hospital to wait which was really nice. She was such a sleepy lamb that day. If anyone knows Meghan, you know that this is a rarity. (<3 best way possible!). I think I was just about as calm on this day as the day of my big arm surgery. But the thing that had me shaken was the thought of the epidural.

After a really long wait, we went down to the operating floor. The anesthesiologist came in and of course, unsettled me. Not only was I shaken from my last experience but why on Earth is it that every anesthesiologist I’ve met with comes off as the strangest human being on the planet? They all remind me a little of Dwight from The Office (the show). Just characters that make you very uncomfortable, but at the same time you know that they know how to do their job well. Does the job attract a certain breed that get off on sending beings off into a comatic state? They always find a way to look at you oddly right before you drift off, too. They may as well sing you a demonic lullaby and shout “bwahahahha” right before falling asleep.

A team of three people came in to perform my epidural and my family was asked to leave while it was performed. They had a fairly large lady wheel a tiny table in front of me and place a towel on it. Kind of like a pillow. She asked me to lean my head and arms down on it. It kind of alarmed me, I got the gist that she was there to hold me down in case I were to freak out during the procedure. I didn’t really plan on jolting around while they had a needle in my spine, but hey – whatever works! The first step was to inject me with a sedative to calm my nerves and my body. As soon as they injected it all three of them immediately looked into my eyes, I guess waiting for my pupils to dance or something. I felt nothing, and so I avoided their faces by awkwardly looking around the room and at the ceiling. Was about to whistle when one of the Dr’s said “huh, not feeling anything are you?” “nope.” So they gave me a 2nd injection and that did the trick. I really don’t like that I am getting so immune to all of these medications. Anyway I felt woozy and the large woman placed her arms over my head and upper body. I don’t remember a pinch at all but I do remember an extremely uncomfortable aching feeling jittering all around and up my back. Not so much pain but more-so where you want to kick the person causing this feeling and just scream “STOP!” A little like electric volts. I remember groaning and felt the woman’s weight pressing down on my body. It was over before I knew it and they left the room. I was scared to lie down on my back, thinking I’d push the spine catheter in further but I soon realized that my torso was completely numb. What a godsend, pregnant momma’s, have no fear. Epidurals are amazing. (Kim, Jaclyn – you were right, thank you.)

Shortly after it was the same routine that I am kind of familiar with now. Kissing the family goodbye, being pushed in my wheelchair down the hall, passed “surgery room 1” “surgery room 2” etc., all the while the person wheeling me is slapping five with his co-workers and laughing about some inside joke that I’ll never know the meaning of. I got into the stark white room and practically ran to the surgical table. I just wanted to be put out already, I always avoid looking at the screens around the room. Yeah, lots of video camera’s in there. Odd. Maybe I’ll make it onto Discovery Health. That would maybe make a small dent in my med bills. Maybe...

What felt like seconds later I awoke, thankfully without the breathing tube in. No real “episodes” this time, thank god. However waking up in that recovery room was no picnic. Anyone who told me that this would be a piece of cake is living in opposite world. And I did expect that.

Before you can be released from the recovery room you have to be able to rate your pain somewhere between 3 and below. This usually takes an hour and includes a few injections of dilotted or whatever else they want to drug you with. It took about 4 hours to get my pain under control and more doses than I can count. Near the end I could tell that the nurse was getting frustrated and so I said “three” even though I really meant eight. I thought I handled pain well until this surgery.

When something hurts, it is easy to dull it with some pain meds or by simply not moving the part of your body that is in pain. When your lung hurts, tough luck. You can’t not breathe. Shortly after I gave the fibbed “OK” they wheeled me off to my room. Yeah, MY room! The one I always end up in, even after my arm surgery. I’m being serious, this made me really happy. Being a nurse, we thought it best that my sister spent the night with me. My parents stayed down the street and Michelle and I camped out in my bedroom #2. I barely slept that night and can honestly say that I have never felt so much pain in all my life. Each time I took a breath it felt as if an exacto knife was shifting in and out of my lung. My ribs felt tight and almost as if they’d snap if I breathed too deeply. Because of this, I formed a bad habit of taking frequent baby breaths, rather than normal long patterns of breathing. For my entire stay I felt like I was breathing through a straw. Asthma felt infantile in comparison to this. I remember waking up and being too afraid to speak in order to wake my sister up. I needed my nurse and did have the button on my bed, but knew that any talking would take away the breathing that I desperately needed to save. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and after deciding not to throw things at my sister in order to wake her up, I whispered “shell” as many times as it took for her to hear me. She woke up and called for my nurse. Pain meds really did nothing, the only thing that worked decently was an anti-inflammatory. I can’t remember the name of it but I remember fiending for it. The nurse would arrive and I felt like an addict, so ready for my relief.

The next day they had me up and walking and coughing. It was painful but I knew I had to do it. I did an amazing job at not once looking at the huge drain tube sticking out of my ribs and emptying into the box on the floor. I had my family cover it in pillowcases. I knew that one glance would cause my body to jellify, and I needed to save up all the strength I had for my baby breaths.

A few days later the moment I dreaded came, the time to pull out that drain tube. They sat me up, counted, and pulled it out. To my surprise it actually wasn’t too painful. Again just a very odd feeling. Like pulling a fat snake out of my side, I could feel it gliding past my insides. Once it was out they just placed some bandages over the wound. The team left and I felt something trickling down my side. I was leaking. Yeah, pretty disgusting to see your inner fluids draining down your hip and into a huge wet spot on my bed. It looked like fifteen children had pee’d my bed. We called them back and they placed more bandages on top and finally I stopped wound-peeing.

The following day they removed my epidural catheter, again not painful in the least. However the effects of not having those meds delivered directly into my spine were terrible. The pain was back and fiercer than ever.

The part that really stunk was that the woman that came to instruct my breathing exercises was not very compassionate. She resembled Sara Silverman and as much as I’d try to let that give me some comic relief, it didn’t really do the trick. She asked me to lie on my side and basically slapped the crap out of my back. This is to break up any phlegm and gunk in your lungs. The part that I think she forgot was that I mentioned that she needed to be careful because of my back incision and also because of the fragility of my shoulder from the last surgery. This chick was a gestapo and showed no remorse! She ended up dislocating my shoulder and at that point I was about ready to slap her around as well.

Since this was right before Christmas, we decked my room out in Christmas lights. It looked really cute, and just as I was getting excited about my new décor – I got booted out of my room and sent to the lung floor with the adults. Turns out the floor had filled up and they needed my room for a child. The good thing was that my nurse felt bad about me having to move all my stuff to the new room, and so she told the lung floor that I had some sort of infectious disease or something along those lines, so that I could get a private room. Niiice! The nurses came in with long gowns, masks, and gloves. It was kind of funny but at the same time – even though I knew I didn’t have anything weird, I felt offended! Like I was some foreign experiment that was leaking rabies and emitting radon or something.

My surgeon came into my room and delivered the news of my biopsy results. Hearing the results, I broke into tears and hysterics…

The first nodule was absolutely nothing, a little pocket of benign junk. The second, however, was not Sarcoma (which is really good), but it was a completely different type of cancerous tumor that was growing. I don’t remember the name of it, but when the Dr saw my reaction he immediately belted out that it was nothing to worry about. I forget the name of it but he said that it was in the extremely early stages, that I wouldn’t have even noticed it was there for another 6 years or so. He also said that it was the most benign form of cancerous tumor there is, if that makes any sense. That really if it was up to him, he wouldn’t of even told me that it was cancerous, but that he had to (obviously) because he is my surgeon. He explained that this doesn't require any extra chemo and that the only thing that needed to be done was removal, which was all done. I asked if he’s seen this is any of the other kids he’s operated on and he sad yes. I asked if he’s ever seen it return, and he said no. My oncologist also explained it the same way, and said that this was all GOOD news. That it is nothing to worry about, it’s not Sarcoma – and because of that, my prognosis has just gone UP. This calmed me greatly and I was able to breathe again.

Soo, these are good things. And because it’s not Sarcoma, I will not need that second lung surgery. Thank god.

I have four more treatments left, and then I am done. Countdown starts…

NOW!