RE: Journal Update - Friday May 18th, the day after surgery

[Guest guest]

,

Great post...again!

I suffered from the worse back pain of my life also after surgery. I asked

the Dr. if they dropped me when getting me off the OR table.. I swear, I'd

have thought I had back surgery as opposed to stomach. I loved the Toridol

as well! Worked like a charm for me, taking the edge off. Morphine was my

new best friend also. I just clicked, and clicked, and clicked, until

finally I learned, the " clicker " eventually stops inputting drugs if you

reach your " cap " ...oh well, it was the thought of it that helped I guess!

Dawn

Journal Update - Friday May 18th, the day

after surgery

05.18.01

*yawn* Well, I went to bed last night at 10pm. Since I was in ICU I would be

awoken every hour for something...Automatic blood pressure reading,

temperature, shots, blood, etc. So finally at 3am I stopped trying to sleep

and was up and completely awake. So there I am, 3am, watching tv, my back

hurting, and they finally let me start having the little sponge swab and ice

chips to wet my lips and mouth. Man, I never thought water would taste so

good. Hehe. For those of you that don't know, in the hospital there is a

long cord with a box attached to it. On this there are a few buttons and a

dial. One button is for the lights in the room, one button is to call the

nurse, and the other button is to change the channel. You basically click

the button and it advances to the next channel. Eventually you'll get to the

end of the channel list and it'll start over. Oh, and the dial is for the

volume...but the sound actually comes from a little speaker that is part of

the 'remote control'...not the TV itself. It's a bit odd, but I can

understand why. Anyways...As I soaked up a good amount of water in the

sponge swab to really wet my mouth, I dragged it across my chest and a

little bit of water kinda dropped off the sponge into the remote which was

on my chest. Oops! Shhhhhh...Don't tell anyone. Hehe. I just kinda wiped it

off, no big deal...A few minute later I click the TV button...Nothing...I

click it again...Nothing...I smack it a couple times and the channel won't

change. Damnit! A minute later the nurse comes in...Aparantly I smacked the

nurse call button as well. Hehehe..Doh! I told her the remote wasn't working

and she tested it. Yup, it's broken. So I just had her put on MTV. I watched

MTV for a few hours and while it wasn't bad, I couldn't change the bad music

off that I didn't like. At 7am, the nurse (Who was really really cute and

also very sweet and helpful) went into another room and switched the remotes

for me. I was very grateful. Then the surgical team came in and said that

all the numbers were looking great and I was doing wonderful. If everything

went ok, I could have the catheter out the following day and get off the IV.

WOo hoo! I called at 7:30am because I missed her and really wanted to

hear her voice. It was nice to hear her voice, but at 9:30 I had to call her

again because I was really feeling bad. I had stopped using the morphine

because it was making me feel nauseous. While I had almost no incisional

pain, I had a lot of back pain from all my weight seeming to come to a point

on the bed on my lower back. Ouch! I saw Dr. Thayer at about 9pm and he said

I looked great, my color was great, then said they should give me some

Toridol for the pain. Before he left though he told me that he didn't take

out my gallbladder as they wanted to. They were inside me and felt it and

could feel a small few stones and wanted to take it out, but I was doing so

well they didn't want to risk leaving me under longer and jeopardize the

positive position I was in. They are going to monitor me fairly closely

though and in the future after I've lost a good amount of weight they'll

take it out if I need it removed. I'll be on antigall though to help prevent

gall stones. I was ok with that and then he left. After that, a small woman

came in and said she was there to help clean me up some. So she unhooked my

gown and I was basically naked except a sheet over my waist. She washed the

best she could and did a damn good job considering my size and not being

able to move on my sides or anything. One thing I did learn in my hospital

stay was that I had to get over my self consciousness. By the end of my

stay, I was sitting around in a pair of shorts, just chatting with anyone

who came in the room without thinking twice about me being almost naked.

Hehe. Once I was all clean though, she looked at the gown she brought and

said there was no way it would fit. At this point, the nurse came in and I

asked if it would be possible to put on my shorts since the gown wouldn't

fit and the shorts were baggy and just pull-up shorts. So I got to sit up

fully then stand while they helped me put my shorts on, making special care

to feed the catheter through the leg. Ahh....much better! I took a couple

steps again then lay down....At this point, it was only about 10pm. I sat

there for awhile, and started to sweat...a lot...and my back started to hurt

again. With all that, and feeling really alone I started to get emotional. I

called the nurse and asked if there was any way possible to get a fan

because I was really starting to get hot and sweaty and feeling

claustrophobic. After she left, I literally almost cried because I felt so

bad. But I didn't...Eventually after asking a few times I did get a fan. A

big, standup, oscilating fan. She put that fan on high and I almost died

because it felt so good!!! At this point, I was happy. The day got better

when showed up at 1:30pm then my mom showed up at 2pm. We had some nice

talks for a few hours. went down and got some food and when she

returned my mom went down to get something to eat. I was told earlier that

morning that I was waiting to get into a room upstairs. So basically we were

just sitting around talking, waiting for a room to open up. They were REALLY

busy apparently. At 5pm, I was delivered 6 1oz. cups of juice. First stage

of the gastric bypass diet. Yum yum. Hehe...I think I finished 2 of the

cups, and had another one later in the night. At 6pm I finally got a room.

Room 661. A nice little private room. They had a few orderlies wheel my

bed up as my mom and tried to keep up. Those orderlies are damn quick!

I loved my room...I had the fan still but the room had air conditioning so I

didn't need it, and there were 2 normal sized chairs and one double size

chair that even my 628 pound (What I weighed at that moment with fluids)

butt fit in. All I can say is that all the complaints that I may have heard

about NWH nurses were not at all displayed in my stay. The nurses were

wonderful. At about 7:30pm my brother, his girlfriend Jackie, and my

friend Hipolito showed up. So it was like a little party. Hehe. They stayed

about an hour then left...Then my mom left...and finally at about 9:30pm

left. It was actually pretty nice to have the room to myself, air

conditioning on, just sitting in the quiet. Oh, I forgot to mention that I

got up when everyone was there and sat in the regular chair. I didn't walk

really. Just sat up (Which took about a minute in itself), stood up, then

turned and stepped back 1 step, then sat down. I couldn't wait to get the

catheter out and get off the IV feeding...I was feeling really bloated.

Hehe. I waited for awhile and asked if I could get some more Toridol since

my back was in a lot of pain at this point (Still not using the morphine).

They gave me some and said they would request that I be put on liquid

Roxicet the following morning for pain. At midnight the respiratory tech

came in and set up my cpap machine and he sat down in the room for about 15

minutes and we talked a bit and watched some of the Drew Carey show. I

finally got to sleep at about 12:30am. At 4am I was woken up for my heparin

shot and the nurse was so nice about it. She said she was going to give me a

Toridol shot at 5:30am, half an hour early because I was having pain. At

that point I used the morphine a little so I could get back to sleep...I

didn't get too nauseous and it did help, but I did feel a little queasy. It

was better than the back pain I was feeling though. So again I zonked out.

-