Great surgery results...and I'm home!

I’m home and the surgery was a great success. I guess it will be easier to write this in chronological order rather than beginning with today and working backward, so here it goes.

Tuesday the 7th: We found out late Monday that my surgery was scheduled for 2:45 and I needed to be in the hospital by 12:45. We arrived early but it took us 30 minutes to get into the parking garage. Once I was registered and moved upstairs to the pre-surgical area, we waited about 30 minutes until we were taken into an area with a bed, where I got to put on one of those stunning gowns and a robe. At 2:30, we were told the OR was running behind and it would be another few hours before they could take me in. I was offered a shot of valium, which I refused (to my later detriment) because I wanted to stay awake with Ed until about an hour before surgery. We now think that delay thing was a ploy, because at 3 p.m. someone came from the OR to take me in.

My great state of denial failed me as soon as I got up on the operating table. First, my vein collapsed when they tried to start an IV in my arm. Then I started shaking and turned cold and clammy. The anesthesiologist suggested putting me under with gas and then they would run the IV line. I agreed and I would guess that it was about 30 seconds before I was out. Although I’m pleased that the doctor made that suggestion rather than having her assistant stick me again, I’m very sorry that the person in the pre-surgical area wasn’t more encouraging about the sedative. If he had prodded me just a little, I probably would have dealt with the needle for the few seconds it would have stung and been in much better shape.

I woke up in the recovery room around 9 p.m. sobbing in a combination of pain and the effects of the anesthesia. They hooked me up to a PCA pump, which fed me a constant drip of morphine plus allowed me to press a pump to give myself an extra hit of it if the drip wasn’t enough. I remember seeing Ed briefly around 10 and hearing him tell me he was going to go home, and the next thing I knew it was around 1 a.m. and they were taking me to my room.

Wednesday the 8th: Dr. Healey came in early in the morning to tell me that the surgery went very well (he told Ed Tuesday night that it went even better than he expected). I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll be getting a copy of the operative report so I know what all he did. He removed 8 centimeters of my bone (about 3½ inches) so he got the tumor out with clean, wide margins (the original tumor was about 5 cm). He sent some of the surrounding tissue out for immediate testing and some for full testing before he closed me up, but he seemed confident that he had left no tumors or cancerous cells behind. We’ll know for certain when the pathology report comes back.

I barely slept after they brought me to the room because it seemed like someone was coming in to check my vital signs every few minutes. At some point, I was in pain and decided to hit the pump. Bad choice. I immediately vomited – although I did have time to tell the nurses assistant so he could hand me a container. When I woke up in the morning, same thing. I hit the pump and promptly threw up, so I had the nurse on the day shift remove the pump and the drip. I eventually refused any pain meds at all, because every time I would close my eyes, I would hallucinate. I was totally exhausted, dehydrated and nauseous, and Ed could barely get me to eat crackers. It was not a fun day.

Ed sat with me from 1 p.m. until 8:30, he talked to me when I wanted to talk and dozed with me when I was tired. He brought me about six bottles of water, which came in very handy in the middle of the night, and tried to make me feel better. He caught me up on everything that happened Tuesday while he was in the waiting room and then saw me in recovery, and told me about Dr. Healey’s enthusiasm over the results of the operation. He also helped entertain my visitors when I was not very entertaining. He’s the best.

Thursday the 9th: Around 3 or 4 a.m., I woke up when someone came in to check my vital signs AGAIN and was starving. Luckily, Ed had left several packages of saltines in the drawer, which I couldn’t reach, and several bottles of water, a cup and a straw on my bedside table. I asked for the crackers, ate all of them and drank about two bottles of water. By morning, I was feeling much better. Dr. Healey came in to check on me and told me he was going to have the drain in my leg removed (it was put in to prevent a build-up of fluids in the surgical area) and my hard cast put on. He also said I could go home Friday or Saturday. That morning, I had my drain removed, the cast put on, my catheter removed, my IVs unhooked, and ate my first meal. What a difference a day makes! I was up on my crutches to use the bathroom and by the time Ed and my mom arrived around 1:30, I had had lunch and was sitting in a chair. Ed was stunned by my progress. We had a nice visit and they left around 6:30 after Mom shared some dinner with me. It was a very good day.

Friday the 10th: Dr. Healey’s assistants came in around 6:30 and I told them I wanted to go home. After reviewing how I was feeling, they offered to prepare my discharge papers. By 1:00 p.m., Ed and I were in the car heading for home. Traffic getting to the tunnel was heavy, and by the time we arrived home around 3:15, I was exhausted. After a three-hour nap, I was ready for soup and the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I then slept another nine hours.

Every time I looked at Ed, he was smiling (when he wasn’t dozing in front of the television) because I was home. I am so happy to be out of the hospital, not because they didn’t take excellent care of me, but because it’s exhausting to be in such a strange environment with something always going on and interrupting your rest.

Today: Today I spent a good part of my day reading e-mails and making phone calls. I was just too tired to talk to anyone yesterday, so I’ve been trying to catch up today. In fact, I haven’t left the kitchen counter since I came down for breakfast at 9:15. Since it’s almost 5 p.m., I think it’s time to take a break and sit in the den for a while. I’m no longer on pain meds and haven’t been since taking a Tylenol with codeine yesterday morning before I left the hospital, so tonight I intend to have a small glass of wine to celebrate. I don’t have a big appetite yet, so it will be interesting for Ed trying to plan meals for the two of us over the next several days. Thank goodness he has a lot of patience. Thank goodness he loves me. I’m a lucky woman.

Thanks to all of you for your calls, cards and encouragement. I need to do some mental work on accepting what’s happened to me and what I’ve had to deal with as well as what may come in the future. I thought the great state of denial was a terrific place to live, but it’s not. Reality will be more helpful to me and make me smarter and stronger, which is what I need to be. Denial may have helped me get up to (certainly not through) the surgery, but acceptance is what I need to embrace. I had a rare form of cancer and had major surgery to remove the tumor. I hope to be a cancer survivor rather than a cancer patient, but we’ll have to see what comes and deal with it. Thank you in advance for your continued support. I will rely on it in the weeks, months and years to come.