Ok, so I’m an idiot. Confession of stupid:
I kiiiiinda did not expect this hernia surgery thing to hurt this much. Or at all. I mean, I thought maybe a little soreness but easily controlled with painkillers. The kids would be at their grandparents and I would sit around with painmeds and sip on soda, watch Dr. Who dvds. I thought this because lots of people told me that when you have it done laparoscopically you recover really fast. Liars! To me, fast means as close to immediately as you can get without actually being right that second.
I was going to put a picture of hernia surgery here but decided to go with another Cute Overload sloth.
Cute Overload, again.
Recovery started with me waking up to lots of medical folks running around yelling something about a fire and then someone in my face all ER like, “Sara? Sara?”<—my real name btw, mom didn’t want to put Sadie on the birth certificate because the woman I’m named after told her not to. Which is confusing enough because no one except doctors, professors and police call me Sara so I was all, “What? fire? sara?” and the nurse disappeared and came back with my doctor who confirmed my identity. But I was still all up about this fire because I was really really afraid I was going to be wheeled onto the street and put on the news. That’s what happens every time a nursing home burns down and I always feel so bad for those people waving from their beds. I would never wave. I would probably just pass out from embarrassment.
Luckily the fire thing was under control so inside I stayed. Down to recovery where they shoved a cracker in my face and said it would raise my blood pressure. A cracker. Um…
Then they sent me and my body full of pain home. Where my pain pills did not relieve body pain but instead made me super nauseous. Yay!
Then I had to sleep sitting up. What the hell was I thinking? I thought. So I had a couple hernias. Who cared? Who even cared if I had a flesh ball sticking out of my tummy? No one. I should have just left it until an intestine got strangled in it or something.
Today (two days post surgery) I feel a bit better. Moving around more and trying to figure out how to strike that Lee Dewyze picture from the blog that keeps getting annoying hits.
I hate the pace of recovery. I miss my kids. My mom has been great of course.
Share your stories of recovery. What days were the worst for you? How long does it usually take you to get over surgery? Do you have an aversion to pain medication? How unfair is that???
Anyway, talk to me because now boredom has set in.
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7 comments
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May 19, 2010 at 10:01 am
aw
Surgery so blows chunks!
When I had my gallbladder removed via laparoscopically no one warned me that my SHOULDERS would hurt SO SO SO SO SO bad!!!! I was like, WTF – seriously? You poked 5 holes in me and yanked out my gallbladder and my SHOULDERS hurt????
Doc was like, “yep that happens sometimes – we think the gas we use to inflate your ass settles in your shoulders after surgery” thus resulting in EXTREME PAIN …
Hang in there girl – watch some pointless TV and keep track of your med schedule.
May 19, 2010 at 11:02 am
winklybink
Yes! Ok, I thought I was going crazy because my shoulders hurt sooooo bad. So much worse than the holes! When the nurse called to check up on me I told her my shoulders hurt and she told me that next time (NEXT TIME!! WHAT?) I should mention to the doctor that I had those weird gas pains in my shoulders and they would try harder to get it out. That she had surgery twice and the second time had no pain because she told them to really try and get it all out. I was like, “or they could just get it all out the first time!”
I’ve given up on half of the meds because they make me too sick. But my mom put on HGTV so I’m all caught up on what the very wealthy in Europe are planting in their vacation homes.
May 19, 2010 at 10:34 am
Brooke
You asked for it 😛
The only surgeries I’ve had (luckily) have been c sections for the kids. With Tucker (my oldest) I was in and out of recovery in no time. The next day when they took the catheter out – W.O.W. Then they made me walk to the bathroom to try and pee. Fun. Not. Then they had me put on these stretchy boyshort mesh type panties. Only, I’m a big girl. A big girl that just had a six month old. When they held up the panties for me step into, I laughed. Well, I tried to laugh, but it hurt too much what with me having been practically split in two. “You’ve got to be kidding!” I said. “Have you paid any attention to the size of my ass, ladies?”
Don’t worry, they assure me. They stretch.
Ummm….to triple their size? At least? I think not….. but like the good patient I was trying to be, I manage to step into them, thanks to the morphine. They have to help me pull them up. Mortifying – even if half the hospital did see my uterus from the inside out. So to make the situation even better, I start to pass out in that tiny little bathroom, which means that my supersized self was endangering the lives of those 2 poor nurses who were just trying to help me get into panties 18 sizes too small so that I could have a sanitary pad the size of a diaper cover all my lady parts. It would have been easier just to duct tape the pad on. Seriously. The poor nurses were scared to death because of their near death experiece so they got me back to the bed pronto. Wheeeee. That was fun.
With Sara, my daughter. They had trouble stopping the bleeding. I was in recovery for hours and hours. I finally get to a room and and they’ve turned up the petosin? pectosin? to full tilt because they think it’s a clot or something. The evening shift nurse keeps coming in to press on my belly, which at first was annoying and then turned painful – which is never a good sign when it hurts more than the good drugs – and by the next morning, I had started bleeding through my incision. So, I guess it wasn’t a blood clot in utero then. I laid there all day bleeding and clotting in all the wrong places (I didn’t know it because I couldn’t see down there) because all hell had broken lose at the hospital and an OB couldn’t even get to my room until after 5 pm to take a look. She said she was coming right back, but never did. Since I was still attached to all sorts of tubes and catheters and such, it wasn’t like I could go looking for anyone, ya know? And the poor nurses were all freaked out that no one was coming to check on me. The next morning, when MY OB came in, he took one look at me, and back to the OR I went so they could redo all my stitches. I had the leftover – I guess you could call it a bruise for lack of a better word – on my lower tummy for over a year before it all went away. My Dr. was PISSED. I don’t blame him. And that was the end of the baby making for me.
SO! I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better! My step brother in law(?!? My mom’s husband’s son) had hernia surgery in Jan and it took him a while to recover but he had let his go to the point that it was getting really, really serious. Mom said it was soccer ball sized. Can you imagine??!?!?! Anyway sending thoughts of cake balls and homemade chicken soup your way. 😀
May 19, 2010 at 10:59 am
winklybink
Oh my god, Sara’s (great name btw) birth sounds like a nightmare! Like the kind of stuff people hear then never want to have children. Haha, those panties are awesome though. I took like 5 pair each time. I had c-sections with both my kiddos too.
Yeah, I saw pictures of how big these things can get if you don’t get them treated so I guess I’m glad I did.
May 19, 2010 at 10:39 am
Elisa
You know, after I had my first c-section my right shoulder hurt like a mother! That is so weird!
May 19, 2010 at 11:50 am
Shelby
I’ve never had surgery…oh, unless getting all four wisdom teeth out at the same time count. I got to eat stuffing and mushy pasta for a week. That was pretty great. I looked like a chubby monster because I can’t take Ibuprofen. That sucked. I really enjoyed the “twilight sleep” though. I would definitely take that again!!!
That’s all I got. Love the sloths btw!!!!
May 20, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Kris
The sloth is still creeping me out.
I have no good surgical tales to tell. I get kidney stones, but those are not funny. At all.
So settle in and watch a whole bunch of crappy television. MY favorites? Reality shows of any kind . . . I am especially partial to Dr. Drew and Celebrity Rehab.
Dr. Drew is way cuter than a sloth, by the way.
Just saying.