I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Day 31 Post-op
Monday, January 17, 2011

First day of george. Dark brown and thick w/ some debris and clots. Took 1/2 Tylenol 3 and 2 Ibuprofen (400mg). Then an hour later I had to take another 1/2 Tylenol 3. I was stoned for much of the day. Had to lay down for much of the day. I wasn’t totally bedridden, but I was super stoned and tired.

The pain is same as it ever was, but now I’m also experiencing a painful pubic incision; it feels like the bleeding is going to come right through the incision. UGH.

I must stay positive & give it a bit more time - see if things even out.

Day 32 Post-op
Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Second day of george. Woke and took 1/2 Tylenol 3 and 400mg Ibuprofen. Then an hour later I took another 1/2 Tylenol 3. Another stoned day. At least my tolerance levels went way back down, and I have more mobility such that I don’t have to take 2 at a time every three hours like I did after surgery.

Again, the pain is the same as it ever was. The heavy bleeding is the same as it ever was. Today the colour went from dark brown to dark red. It’s still thick. I have more clots today.

At 11am state disability called. Apparently the assistant surgeon (Skillern) screwed up my disability forms! He didn’t say how but the guy sighed a lot. Still no pay for the foreseeable future! Thanks, Dr. Skillern! Hate you! This is the same assistant who was always demeaning and rude. I want to set her car on fire.

Today I did nothing all day. I was fully bedridden all day. I am really not okay with this. I’m so impatient to be healed up and for the surgery to have ‘worked’.

When my husband got home from a day of gaming with friends (he’s still unemployed), he ordered Indian dinner for us. I went to the couch and sat down to eat with my husband (I had Saag Paneer). While eating, my male cat backed up against the wall by the door and peed all over the wall!!! It of course totally ruined our night. Adrenaline kicked in and I got up improperly (not watching my body movements to be gentle on myself), I scooped up the cat, we shoved his face in the urine soaked wall, and I put him in the shower and closed the shower doors. I then cleaned up the piss and went all over the house bending over and stooping down and looking for more piss. There wasn’t any more that we could detect.

I swear it was an hour later when the adrenaline wore off, and I got insanely tired.

But I did not want to be tired, so I stood up and walked around the house. This of course kicked up the cramps. OF COURSE. At that point, I took a full Tylenol 3 pill and back to bed.

From bed, I wrote an article for my website, so at least I can say I did something today.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Had a sad dream where I was in a stonemason’s shop, searching for my own headstone.

When I woke, I became alert to the fact that my pelvic pain had worsened overnight. The pain did not feel like post-op pain. It felt like my “usual” menstrual pain. My period was due on Monday, but because I had pelvic surgery 28 days ago, who knows…perhaps my period would be early or late. All the organs being fiddled with and such…

I called my surgeon’s office and my family doctor and asked if anyone had gotten my blood test results back, yet. My family doctor was the first one to call back with the info.
I was told that my red blood count was at 33 (low again) and that my liver count was normal at 42. However, my white cell eosinophil count was still high - it was 1,100!
I asked what I do next, and the doctor replied, “you go see your surgeon!” I asked if there was anything I should be doing in the meantime, should I go to E.R.? Am I contagious? The doctor replied she does not get to make recommendations, that this is on my surgeon. She said to just wash my hands thoroughly in case of contagion. So I called and left another message with the surgeon.

Flustered, I sat straight up on the couch to adjust my sitting position, and I screamed because I was hit with a sharp pain at the site of my pubic incision. It was a deep pain, not a surface pain. Maybe the pain was not in the incision itself but the same area where prior to surgery I would say “the pain was low in the uterus near the bladder”.

You know, I had been truly surprised when, right after surgery, my surgeon told me she had not found any endometriosis on the bladder reflection like my previous surgeon in 2007 had. My new surgeon said she found on evidence of endometriosis on or near the bladder or bowels. So all the pain I have is just radiating, then? It feels like it’s bladder pain but it’s really just a large aftershock of pain that had radiated out from the uterus?

I hate endometriosis so much.

After my screaming episode on Day 28 post-op, I whimpered and emotionally caved in to medication. I had barely been taking any medication at all, and had not taken ANY Tylenol 3, since December 27th when I was terrified I’d killed my liver.
But after the screaming pain, I caved in and took 400mg ibuprofen with a half a Tylenol 3.
Shortly thereafter, I went for walk with my husband because I was too stubborn to lay down and submit to the pain. I figured if I walked, that perhaps I would loosen up adhesions and such.

We walked 2 miles and stopped at grocery along the way!

Half-way through the walk, I had to sit down for about 15-20 minutes before hitting the store because the pain had ramped up in my lower back and my pelvis. It had made it difficult to continue putting one foot in front of the other. We sat at a bench and just hung out in the warm sun for a bit.

My husband

Me, sitting straight up cuz of the pain

A view of San Francisco and the smog...

Closer view of San Francisco in the smog

Alameda beach and Bay Farm peninsula in distance

Alameda beach and Bay Farm peninsula in distance

When I felt ready, we continued our walk and went towards the grocery store. As soon as we got to the store, my surgeon’s office called back. It was Dr. Wang, and she insisted that whatever infection is going on with me is NOT directly related to surgery. She suggested allergies or at worst, a parasite infection. She told me they do not specialise in this area, and that my family doctor has to see me. At that point, my family doctor called on the other line, so I took the call. She’d been briefed already and apologised to me for pushing back to the surgeon. I told her it’s okay, I think the surgeon is the one passing the buck, here. The family doctor said I’ll have to submit stool samples to rule out parasites. HOW THE HELL WOULD I HAVE GOTTEN A PARASITE INFECTION.

UGH.

Family doctor told me to stop in on Monday to pick up the collection tubes. I went back into the store to find my husband and finish our shopping.

When we got home, to my surprise, I had increased mobility! We made and ate dinner, but within two hours, the pain returned. I took another 400mg ibuprofen and another half Tylenol 3.

We spent the evening at a friend’s house playing card games - I could not sit in the provided hard chair because I kept getting sharp pelvic pains whenever I laughed or sat up straight. I was given a plush computer chair to sit in and that helped a bit, though I still had to get up and stand or walk around every half hour or less.

After game night, we came home, and I crawled into bed.

Firsts for today: Walked two miles despite having premenstrual pelvic and low back pain.

Complications: Sharp pains beginning in afternoon and lasting til evening whenever I laughed or sat upright.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Every muscle in my stomach felt pulled that day, probably from all the exercise I had since Monday night. I went dancing Monday, I lifted a 19lb box Tuesday, and did leg lifts Tuesday night.
Because of the pain I was in on Wednesday, I barely took any exercise. My left leg had increasing calf pain all day, too. It felt like I pulled a muscle. I realised after analysing it for hours that my calf muscle was strained because while sitting at the kitchen table doing homework the day before, I had been bouncing my leg the entire time.

I spent most of Wednesday in a bad mood. I was pretty sure it was PMS at that point.

On the good news front, I finally got my patient records in the mail. The bad news is that it did not include the original copy of my disability paperwork. I was very angry. I wrestled with the phone tree for Mt. Zion patient records, was transferred over to UCSF patient records, who said they cannot send originals of anything once it goes into patient file, and they referred me back to the assistant surgeon (Dr. Skillern) who put it in my file instead of giving the disability paperwork back to me in the first place. Oh and I love how she blamed my husband for not getting the paperwork while we were in the hospital:

“I spoke with Dr. Skillern regarding your disability form and she said she filled it out and file it in your hospital chart. Per Dr. Skillern she mentioned this to your husband after the surgery. I thought she filed it in your chart for our clinic. This means that you form is in the hospital medical records department. Either you will request a copy of the form from UCSF medical records department or you can send us another blank form and I will have Dr. Skillern fill it out.” (email correspondence w/ one of the nurses on December 23, 2010).

You know, obviously it’s my husband’s fault, because he did not have enough on his plate already with his wife having gone through surgery with complications, having to be admitted overnight, and he had perhaps 2 hours sleep the night before my surgery due to nerves, and he had to drive home and come back the next day, again on very little sleep, with the urgent notice that my red blood cell count had taken a dive and that I might need blood transfusions or more surgery. CLEARLY it is his fault for not recalling that Dr. Skillern mentioned to him that my disability paperwork was in my patient file and to retrieve it before we left the hospital. OBVIOUSLY Dr. Skillern was far too busy to just set the fracking paperwork on the table next to my hospital bed, and instead had to go the long way around, like she always does.

Had I mentioned how angry I was on Day 27 post-op?

After spending an hour going through phone trees and email with the UCSF nurses, I finally just made copies of the copies so that I had something for my home file. Then my husband drove me to the nearest disability office. To our utter joy and amazement, there was no one else in that office, and someone took my paperwork and said that copies were just fine and everything was in order! I was told that I should be hearing back in a week or so!

Spirits lifted a bit, I did a little bit of homework at the end of the night.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011. One o’clock pm.

I AM SO MAD!!!

I got a copy of my December 28 blood test results to take to my doctor appointment on Wednesday, and right there in bold text, it shows my red blood cell count is low and my eosinophil white blood cell count is through the roof! The eosinophil count was 1,900!!!
‘Normal’ is 15-500! It was flagged as HIGH and everything, in bold text! How could these people miss it?!?!?

I had puked my guts out on December 26th, and I had pain and bloating under the diaphragm, as well as itching all over my trunk from December 26-28th. I was having all sorts of issues and my surgeon’s office kept saying ‘you’re fine’. At my post op on January 5 I was still getting ‘you’re fine’, even though I felt like crap.

Then Monday January 10 I get a call from them saying “uhhhhh can you get a new blood test”?

How can they let THIRTEEN DAYS go by before really studying my blood test results and seeing some kind of major infection going on!

At my January 5 post-op appointment my surgeon’s assistant said “so and so got the results and said it looked fine.” The surgeon asked, “Do you have the paperwork?” The assistant replied “No, it’s at the front desk.” Instead of going to the front desk to get the paperwork, my surgeon asks me, “Do you want to get more blood work done?” I looked at her funny and said, uhhh, no…if you think my blood work was fine…” And my surgeon replied, “Oh! Well okay, you’re fine!”

I am SO MAD! I am kicking myself for not saying GO GET THE DAMNED PAPERWORK YOU LAZY ASSHATS!

ARRRRGGGGHHH!!!

After I settled down from my rage a little bit, I went outside and climbed the stairs to the building I live in. I ascended the stairs SIX TIMES. This is a first. My previous record was three times, five days earlier.

Firsts for today:

• Climbed stairs 6 times.
• I lifted a 19lb box of school work and carried it from the bedroom to the kitchen, spent the afternoon doing homework. Then I carried the box back to the bedroom and lifted and put it atop a 46″ tall dresser. This is the most weight I have lifted since surgery, and it did cause some discomfort, but I wanted to test my limits.

Complications/Complaints:

• Dizzy and weak after stair climbing - despite a full meal an hour beforehand.
• Mild to moderate pelvic and low back pain all day. It got bad enough at times that I wanted to take Tylenol 3, but I’ve become seriously revolted by the stuff since my big scare on December 27.
• Still having diarrhea - this time after dinner. It could be food sensitivity, though; I ate sushi, and some of it had avocado, which has given me diarrhea since 2010 when I became more sensitive to things in the latex family. I had also drank some miso soup, which I have had sensitivity to as well. After dinner, I had cow’s milk ice cream (w/ 2 lactaid pills). So much food - I was plagued by internal gas and too full a feeling all night - it finally simmered down by 11:30pm.
• I’m PMSing. I can seriously feel the uterus thickening. I’ve begun to have major sugar cravings. I found and ate ALL the chocolate in the house. I drank sugary pop twice that day. I am angered at the drop of a pin.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I completely exhausted myself between Friday and Monday, and this was evident because on Tuesday, I slept all day. During my waking moments, I was depressed, because I’d discovered that my cat was still peeing on stuff. On Sunday, he’d peed on the bathroom rug. Sometime between Monday and Tuesday, he peed on my homework on the kitchen table. The last time he did this, I had to tear apart my entire Mathematics album and reassemble it (thank [insert deity here] for page protectors, but my handwritten notes were ruined, because they were the only things not in plastic page protectors).

Upon seeing that my cat had peed on my homework again, I broke down sobbing.
Thankfully, upon closer inspection, he’d only gotten the box of page protectors and the outside of my Language Arts album. I threw away some plastic pages and cleaned up the outside of the album, and cleared off and disinfected the table, all while sobbing. My husband stood near me, arm around my shoulders, the whole time. He had asked if he could help and I let out a muffled ‘no’ and continued cleaning. He knows me well enough to know that he was giving me all the support I needed by just being there with his arm around me.

And then, the old idiom, “when it rains, it pours”. I discovered that my surgeon’s assistant (not Skillern, but Wang, the more polite one) had left a voicemail for me about my December 28 blood work. You know, the blood work results that they didn’t bother to fetch from the front desk at my post op appointment on January 5th. The blood work that I had gotten a call about the day after my blood was drawn, saying everything was fine. That blood work.

I called the surgeon’s office back and played phone tag, and fretted. Finally, Dr. Wang called back again.

Turns out that AFTER my post-op visit on January 5, my surgeon decided to actually go and look at the report herself, rather than rely on the “ummm” and “uhhh” of the assistants and front desk people. Good call on her part - turns out they had missed something: abnormally large white blood cell count (eosinophils).
They had kept telling me everything was normal when I insisted it was not - even at my post-op appointment on January 5. HAH. This did NOT help my emotional state that day.
I quickly made an appointment with my local doctor as instructed by Dr. Wang. I was able to score an appointment for the next day, but less than 24 hours was even too long for me to wait at that point.

That day, I took 1mg Ativan, but still refused to take pain meds, even though my emotional meltdown set off instant cramps and fatigue. I can’t say enough how much stress and anxiety bring on and worsen endometriosis pain. Even though I have relaxation techniques and books and podcasts and MP3s on stress management, I still struggle with becoming master of my emotions.
Here’s a good article from an author I trust.

Complaints for Day 25:
My belly button still hurts.

Firsts for Day 25:
Did 10 slow stomach crunches and 10 sit-ups before bedtime:
Lying on my back, I put my legs in the air, bent at the knee. My hands rested on the sides of my body. I held the pose for as long as I could, and then I slowly extended my legs forward and back again, 10 times.

Sit-ups: I laid on my back with my legs bent, feet flat on the floor. I rested my hands on my thighs and sat up slowly until my hands touched my knees. Note: do not sit all the way up.

Monday, January 10, 2011

4:19am: “WHY am I awake”.

I wondered if it was because I had drank alcohol throughout the day on Sunday. We had gone wine tasting for my husband’s birthday.

“My legs are bouncing and my brain is spinning and my stomach is gurgling and my heart feels like it is pounding, even though my pulse is normal. I need to be “sleeping with prince valium” I think.” - Monday at 5:11am

I took 1mg Ativan and went back to bed at 5:30am and slept til after 11am. I woke groggy, of course.

So it was Monday, the start of another work week, and I was still home recovering from surgery. The week off was approved long ago, but I felt guilty for being out of work anyway, because I had not been in constant pain for over a week at that point.

Simple movements were still painful, and I was still easily fatigued, so I reluctantly adhered to the 6-week recovery recommendation from my surgeon. I didn’t want to irritate my surgical wounds by going back to work too soon, since preschoolers have no concept of restraint when it comes to their physical activity.

I spent Monday finishing the first semester self review for work, and I emailed it off to my director at school.

Monday night, we went out to dinner with my husband’s father and step-mother. It was quaint. I had more alcohol to drink. Why have I been drinking so much alcohol? I have blatantly violated my post-op rules to myself! Why is my will so weak?

After dinner, my husband, still on a birthday high, wanted to go out to our favourite nightclub. What the heck, we’re both off work, right? Why not? I was zombified but my hubby really wanted to go, and he hadn’t arranged for any other buddies to join him. So I went. I thought, “Hey, at least I can practice my stair climbing!”
I took .5mg Ativan before going out, because my nerves and guilt ramped up. Anytime I’ve done something enjoyable during my time off work for surgery recovery, I have felt guilty about it, as though I’m somehow cheating the system or playing hooky on purpose from work. It’s pretty lame that I am capable of so much guilt.

Once we were at the club, my mood elevated. It was good to be among my people again! I was all dressed up and the music and scenery were sweet heaven on my ears and eyes. Because I had been active and out and about all weekend, I decided to take the plunge that night. I danced!

Of course, I overdid it, and before long, I was holding my stomach and breathing rapidly in panicked fashion because of the abdominal cramps that I’d set off. But I refused to take my medication. I’d been too afraid to take Tylenol 3 since December 27th, when I had the “oh crap I’ve killed my liver” scare.

I drank a lot of water that night, and crawled into bed, whimpering, as soon as we got home.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

It was my husband’s 40th birthday, and he had planned to go to breakfast and then wine tasting all day. I had recently gotten news that my car was leaking brake fluid, so the driving was left up to my husband - unless we rented a car for me to drive. Upon checking, none of the car rental places save for the airport were open on a Sunday. I was ready to pursue this angle, but commented that my husband would have to pay for the rental, since I’ve been out of work for almost a month.

His reply was that if it was okay with me, he’d like to take our chances with my car.

I was NOT happy. I protested. I grumbled. I caved in. I remained NOT HAPPY.

I drove him to breakfast, and two friends joined us. I was very delighted to be able to hold down leaded coffee with cream, a scramble consisting of home fries, tomatoes, spinach, green onions and cow’s milk cheese. I also had some sliced bananas to go with the almond-milk vanilla pudding I’d brought with me in the event that I could not eat anything on the menu. Quite a yummy brekkie I had!

The birthday boy surrounded by friends!

The birthday boy with friend and wife!

We sussed out wine tasting route and caravan plans, and off we went. On our way back to the car, my husband stepped in dog poop. To ensure his entire day was not ruined, I took the job of jovial and optimistic and helpful Wife. Sticking his boot in mud encased the poop for the short term, until he could address the issue later. Disaster averted, but ooops, we lost one of our caravan to impatience. We tried to warn her that the first winery was difficult to get to…

As expected, we and our friend who did follow behind us got to the winery with no sign of friend #2.
Good Wife phoned friend #2, who was in an agitated panic over being lost, and calmly guided her to me as I walked perhaps a third of a mile. Once retrieved, I hopped into her car and guided her to the parking lot, allowing her to vent in her red-headed way that I so often do myself (being a red head).
I was even able to convince her, after a few drinks, to join us in my car for further wine tasting. I got my exercise in for sure - getting into and out of my go-kart of a car all day and walking to and from wineries. I was moderately tired all day. The day was beautifully sunny, even though it was still very cold for me. The wind did not help matters. I do not thrive in 50°F weather. I’m comfortable in upper 60s to low 70s. That’s my range.

We didn’t die that day. No brake failure, which of course made me feel SUPER guilty for bailing on my teacher seminar the day before.

Firsts for Day 23:

• I drove my car all day, getting into and out of car repeatedly.
• My face and neck did not rash out with all the red wine and port I was trying, and I had not taken a Benadryl!

Complications:

• I experienced stabbing, searing bladder pain/urgency whenever my bladder was full. This was possibly due to sulfites in the wines I was tasting.
• I was still experiencing loose stool from the previous day’s coconut oil overdose.
• Since I am no longer in continual pain, I forget that there are things I still cannot do without causing pain; jumping, hip-checking car door or the front door to make sure it’s closed.

What I did for pain management was sit down often. I noticed that when standing at a bar, I stand to one side and sort of lean into the bar. Being post-op, this hurt a lot, and yet I could not stop myself from assuming that stance. So I would find a folding chair and sit down away from the bar. This meant I did not get the full range of wine tasting, but I rarely go for the whole range, anyway. I’m very partial to only certain reds.

January Birthday buddies wine tasting as I sit and rest.

After we got back into town and dropped our friend off at her car, we headed home to drop off some goodies my husband had purchased on our wine tasting trip, and then we went out to dinner. We were starving, and to my happy joy, there was something on the menu that I could eat - baked salmon with mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach! It was divine.

Birthday dinner with hubby at Speisekammer

The day ended on a sour note when we arrived home and I went to use the bathroom and stepped in cat pee. I began the usual line of questioning - was it because we had a friend over on Saturday who owns big dogs? Is my cat’s renal condition worsening? Was he mad at us for being gone for long stretches of time over the weekend? Does he have a bladder infection?
Alas. Only thing to do was to clean up the pee and monitor the cat’s behaviour again. Never a happy job. We’d gone weeks before he started up again. It’s always something different it seems.

Monday, January 3, 2011

I slept in again, and started to feel bad about it. The rest of my friends were returning to work after winter holiday, and I was still off work, recovering from surgery. I began to feel guilty - I should be at work, too. My mind felt ready to be at work - it was just my body that wasn’t cooperating.

I walked, stretched, filed paperwork, washed a few dishes that day.

And also, my Firsts for Day 17:

• I was able to lay on my left side for most of the night.
• I laid on my belly for about 7 minutes (to receive a massage).
• I drove my car for the first time since before surgery. I drove around town, which has a 25 M.P.H. speed limit. Even so, the pain and stiffness returned, landing me at a 5 on the pain scale. I took 600mg ibuprofen for the pain.
• I was able to eat three orders of sushi rolls!! This is huge news! I’ve not been able to eat too much at a time without getting diarrhea or horrible pains under the diaphragm. This was the first time I’ve really tucked in! Woohoo!

Last night, my husband’s friend flew in for a job interview, so we and another friend drove down to the South Bay to hang out for the evening.

R, J & B at sushi dinner

Just chillin in the hotel room

It was a good time. I giggled a lot, and didn’t die. I guess I must be healing well!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Woke up that morning with the intent of going to the social security office, because both of us have name change stuff we’ve been meaning to do. I also wanted to call my doctor and see if I could get an appointment today for liver blood work, because I was still freaked out about the pink hue in my fingernails. I called UCSF and left a message. Then I called the local doctor’s office. They sounded condescending to me on the phone. “What, you think there’s a medication issue going on?” Ummm YES I’ve eaten over 80 Tylenol 3 since being in hospital on December 17, and I had an issue with high liver enzymes before, so YES I think there’s a fracking medication issue going on! I’m afraid of irreversible liver damage thankyouverymuch!

The local doctor had an appointment for me at 4:15pm. I then talked with my husband, who said he thought going to UCSF would be better, since they already have all my most recent blood work and surgery records. When they called back, they had a sooner appointment, so we took that.

It didn’t leave us time to go to the social security office after all, but I told my husband we could do that tomorrow, and that his priority is to me and making sure that I am well before dealing with any of his stuff. Yeah, he was still in the dog house.

The bumps in the road during the car ride did not bother me immediately and intensely the way they had when I was driven home from the hospital and like when we went out a few days ago. Rather, the torture was delayed. Half way to UCSF, I experienced stinging sharp pain under the diaphragm. The pain went away once we were out of the car and settled at the doctor’s appointment. The pain returned on the ride home, and returned again when we drove to a friend’s house that evening.

My exercise for the day came in the form of walking to the car, walking from the parking garage to the hospital and back, and walking back to the house.

I’d like to also note that while we were at the UCSF Women’s Center, I also walked across the street to the main hospital, where I delivered a Thank You card to Nurse Hannah. She wasn’t there, and the wing I had stayed in (4 East) was shut down and being painted, so I delivered the card to the other side of the wing (ICU).

Firsts for Day 11:

• Able to put on and tie my own shoes (have been wearing slip-ons til today)
• Able to wear a bra for part of the day
• Able to wear tights for part of the day
• Able to jump (we have ants entering at the top of the door frame. I was spraying the outside of the door frame with Bugs-R-Done spray, but wasn’t quite reaching the top. Before I knew what I was doing, I had jumped to spray. When I landed back on my feet, my eyes were wide, and I stood there in shock for a second. Then I thought, “Holy crap! I didn’t die!”

I was so excited by jumping that I jumped again. I giggled. And then I had to take a nap, because that had seriously worn me out!
I napped for about an hour.

Because of my fear of liver damage, I took no medication that morning or afternoon - not until I had gotten the blood work done. I gave three vials of blood that day; one for liver, one for kidney and one for blood count.

When I woke up from my nap, my husband informed me that it was time to head over to a friend’s house. She was going to take us to dinner in exchange for my husband watching her cats this coming weekend. We had Thai that night.

The weather had been rainy all day (winter in California), and worsened by evening to a drenching downpour. This made my life a little more miserable because of how slow I am in getting into and out of cars during recovery.

I had diarrhea as soon as we got to our friend’s house, and twice more as soon as I got home.

Nausea and stomach pain followed, lasting through bedtime. This was the second time since surgery that I had intestinal issues after eating Thai.
That night, I had fitful sleep. I was hot and cold all night - sometimes drip-sweating. This was about the third night in a row where I went to bed freezing and woke up sweating to death.

Monday, December 27, 2010

My husband was in the dog house as he recovered from a severe hangover and a morning of puking his guts out, amongst other bad behaviour. I was severe in my verbal punishment, telling him he failed me as a caregiver, that I needed him to remain level-headed like he promised me he would be, because I’ve been scarred before by caregivers letting me down (my boyfriend promised my parents he would take care of me after a near-death head-on auto accident back in 1994, and then he left me alone for days while he hung out with friends. I had to crawl to the kitchen to get food, with a massive head injury and whiplash. I will never forgive him and in fact I sued him as an uninsured driver in that accident). So anyway, I’m scarred physically and emotionally, and it took many years to build up trust. I boasted to my parents how well my husband had been caring for me to this point. And then this. Oh my gods I was so mad.

On to brighter things though - on Day 10 post-op, I noticed that I was able to lay on my back, my right side, and my left side with effort and controlled breathing to settle. Although the right side is the hardest to lay on. I discovered through having to clean up my husband’s messes that I was able to sit on my knees. I was able to more easily swing my legs off the couch or the bed. I was able to more easily climb into bed.
All of this is only one day later than my last recovery, wherein I could lay on my sides by Day 9.

I have to keep reminding myself that this time is different. I had surgery a week before my period, not after. I have four incisions this time, not three. They bumped into the thin tissue outside of my bowel, bruising it badly, upon entering my body with the equipment.

The headache that started at 8pm the previous night still with me at 2pm the next day. It finally went away by 4pm. This, despite lowering the dose of Tylenol 3.

All day, I experienced cramps, and the bleeding had ramped up again. This was Day 10 of post-op and Day 5 of my menstrual cycle. I was still passing a lot of big clots. I cried from the pain and had to take a whole Tylenol 3 around noon. I held the heating pad to my pelvis for the first time since surgery, the pain was so bad. It felt like white hot burning in the center of the uterus, alternating on the ovaries.

Because I am determined to keep the body moving as doctors instructed, I went for a walk around the block. The weather had cleared again, and I wanted to take advantage. This is a half-mile round trip walk, and I did it! I walked at a shuffle in a Tylenol 3 induced haze, but I did it!

Because I was still constipated, I took two doses of miralax that day, and finally had a bowel movement at 10:24pm. It was a mix of solid and liquid.

I forgot to mention that around Day 4 or Day 5, I had noticed that my fingernail tips were turning pink hue. My fingernail tips have for years been so white that it looks like I have a French manicure, so when I looked down at my nails one day and saw that they matched my skin tone, it freaked me out.
I finally remembered to google it, right before bed…and found this page, which says, “White fingernails with pink near the tops are a sign of cirrhosis of the liver.”

This freaked me out further and nearly led to a panic attack. I went to bed uneasy that night.