Surgery and Recovery

As I was ending the last post, I was prepping me and the house for me to have surgery. Monday night was my list time to be able to eat for a few days so I decided on steak, baked potato and salad as my last meal of sorts 🙂 It was divine.

The next day(Tuesday) I was to go on a liquid diet and ending the day with a horrific cleanse!! Seriously 4 Dulcolax and a WHOLE botttle of Miralax. I think someone in the medical field was on something when they thought that concoction up! It was not a fun experience and hope I never have to do it again!

The next morning came way too quickly. Thankfully I slept decently that night and we didn’t have to leave for the hospital until 8. My inlaws came to stay with the kids for a couple of days. I was at ease knowing that my kids would be fine and sleeping in their own beds.

We got to the hospital at about 9 to check in, then headed upstairs to the pre-op waiting area. I really don’t understand why they had us come so early when my surgery wasn’t scheduled until 12, but oh well. I was surprisingly calm. I had my conversations with God and just put myself in his hands. Sure, I could freak out, but what would that help me. Make me more stressed, nervous, a mess…. My thoughts were, why do that to myself. I couldn’t change what was happening, so I just gave it to GOD.

They wheeled me down to the other waiting room where I would get my IV at about 11:30 or so. This is where hubby had to leave me. I could tell he was so nervous, probably enough for the both of us. I got my IV and again just waited. I guess the surgery room was running late. It wasn’t until just before 1:30 I think that they gave me “happy” medicine and wheeled me back to the operating room. I don’t remember anything 15 seconds after I got the first happy medicine.

The next thing I know it is about 7 pm and I am waking up in a different hospital room. Apparently surgery took a lot longer than they expected. I was in some serious pain!!! Seriously my belly felt like it had been beat up!!!!!

They were able to do the surgery laproscopically, but that still meant 5 incisions. I had to get pain meds every 4 hours almost on the dot. It wasn’t until Thursday that I finally got food in my system. And by food it was yogurt and applesauce. I was to be on a soft foods diet and there weren’t that many choices on the hospital menu.

My doctor came in Thursday morning to check on me. She said surgery went well and she said something to the effect that I was a great surgery for her. I guess it was a compliment, but I will be happy not to have to go through that again!! She said I could have gone home that night if I wanted to go home with the catheter and leave it in until Tuesday or stay until the next day and learn to self cath at home. As much as I wanted to go home, I wanted to go without a cath in!!

I got up when I could and tried to walk as much as my body would allow. I wasn’t overly hungry so the soft food diet didn’t bother me much. Friday came and I was ready to go home, but we had to take the cath out and go several hours with me be able to “go” on my own. Oh and having an Indian woman try and teach you how to self cath was the most awkward time ever!!!!

After the wait time was up, I was able to go home and see my babies. They were so good at just hugging my neck and arms and staying away from my belly. I sure missed them and love them to pieces.

My parents took the kids for the next couple of days to their house and it was a blessing. I definitely needed that time to not have kids racing around. Hubby decided it was a good time to tear out the carpet in the Living Room and put laminate down, so it wasn’t all completely peaceful at the house, but I was able to rest when I needed to and just be and not worry about the kids.

It has been a slow recovery which is hard for me and I can’t sit or lay down for very long before I have to move. So it is an up and down game and trying new ways to get comfy. I will be at two weeks post surgery this Wednesday. I still have some recovery time ahead. My incision are still healing and I still have some swelling that hurts. I am also still trying to build up my energy. I can’t seem to get enough food in and not many foods are really tasting good. Not having enough energy has been hard. I want to get up and clean or walk around and it isn’t long before I have to sit again from being tired.

We are waiting to hear the results from pathology on all that the doctor removed. I am guessing that it will help tell if I will need anything further. I don’t go back to the doctor for another two weeks. I am guessing that I will have another scan to see if everything was removed, but I am not totally sure. For now, I am just to focus on healing and getting myself back. I just realized that I have a half marathon scheduled for about 14 or 15 weeks from now and I still have another 4 weeks until I am allowed to exercise. That will be a tight time frame to get ready if all goes well and I don’t need any radiation or chemo.

So that is it for now. I will update again when we find out what is our next step in this cancer journey. I am happy to have the tumor that we know of out of me!! I will just keep praying and hoping that surgery took care of it all and we can move on with our lives!

Here are the first two posts in this journey:
Not the “C’ Word
Update on my Cancer Journey