Disclaimer: My account of my surgery and the days following
are very candid. Please read with
caution.
The month of May moved by very quickly, as it does for most
teachers. With summer eagerly
anticipated by the students, the last push to get any remaining material in,
and final assignments to be graded, it can become quite hectic. Thus, I was busy grading, making my final
exam, and preparing to say goodbye to a great group of students. It kept my mind off of my upcoming surgery,
although I was not very nervous. My expectations
were based off of my first surgery experience, which as I had said here was
not very difficult. However, I was soon
proven to be very wrong.
Preparations for this surgery were vastly different from my
first. My first surgery required that I
not eat anything after midnight. This
surgery required that I maintain a liquid diet the entire day before
surgery. Halfway through the day I was
to begin my cleanse, drinking glass after glass of water mixed with Miralax. It was about as pleasant as you could
imagine. By the time I went to bed at
about eleven o’clock at night I felt utterly exhausted. Five o’clock came early that next morning as
I again continued my cleanse, this time with two enemas. My body was as cleaned out as ever and I was
pretty miserable about the entire experience.
Jonathan and I had a forty-seven mile ride up to St. Peter’s University
Hospital in New Brunswick that morning.
I didn’t say much during the hour and a half ride, just listened as he
sang along with the songs playing through his iPod. Perhaps it was the lack of energy, perhaps it
was the envy I felt as Jonathan enjoyed a nice cup of coffee from Wawa, but I
was feeling down. Reality was setting in
that I was having surgery that morning and I became nervous. I wondered how it would all go, wondered what
time I would get home that night, and even wondered if anyone knew that it
would make me really happy to have freshly baked cookies that evening.
We arrived at beautiful St. Peter’s University Hospital by 8:30
am. Friendly security guards welcomed us
at the front desk and instructed us to walk through the atrium, filled with
comfortable furniture and a Baby Grand piano. This is a hospital? This is nicer than most houses! Soon I was taken back in to the surgical
waiting room where I put on a gown and was hooked up to an IV. I put my hair in a ponytail and covered it
with the gauze shower cap I was given.
It was becoming so real. Laying
in my hospital bed I stretched and squirmed as I waited to be taken back to the
operating room.
Surgery was delayed a bit from my ten o’clock start time, as
Dr. Beiter’s
first surgery went longer than planned. However, I only felt concern for
Jonathan at this moment, as I knew that would mean that we would be getting
home later than we had planned. Despite
the fact that I was undergoing surgery, I could not help but feel badly that I
was putting him out in some way, making him wait all day while I was in surgery
and recovery. The guilt nauseated me.
Finally, Dr.
Beiter came in and told me he needed to check on things in the OR and
then we could begin. It was time. I kissed and hugged Jonathan and for the
first time, I felt like crying. I was
scared to leave him and scared that he wouldn’t be with me the whole time. Of course, I knew he couldn’t be in the OR,
but still, I longed for him to be there those last few minutes before I was put
under. Soon a nurse came in and walked
me out of the room, leaving Jonathan behind to watch me clutch the back of my
hospital gown so as not to moon anyone as I walked by.
I walked a short distance to the operating room. Waiting inside were Dr. Beiter, an anesthesiologist, and two nurses. They all greeted me warmly and explained what
they would be doing as we prepared for the surgery. Boots were put over my feet and ankles to
keep my blood flowing, warm blankets were draped over me to keep my body
temperature from dropping in the cold room, and the general anesthesia was
pumped in to my IV. In a few seconds my
veins ran hot with the anesthesia and I began to feel sleepy. I closed my eyes and awoke five hours later,
free of my endometriosis.
Recovery
I awoke in pain. The
comfort of seeing Jonathan’s face washed over me, but sadly, it did nothing to
ease the discomfort I felt. My entire
abdomen, from my breast bone to my pubic bone, ached. It felt as though I had someone sitting on
top of me, constricting my breathing, stabbing my insides. I cried.
The nurse offered Motrin to take the edge off. I could have other medication later. Now, it was time to get me out of my bed to
try to go to the bathroom.
I remembered this. If
I wanted to be discharged I would need to show them that my kidneys were still
functioning properly and that I could urinate.
With all of the fluids that had been pumped in to me, I really needed to
go. But I couldn’t. I cried as I tried to sit on the toilet. It was excruciating. The nurse held me as I leaned back, almost
lounging on the toilet as I prayed that I could go. She turned on the water. Nothing.
She left to give me privacy.
Nothing. I pulled the frayed, red
string on the wall that signaled that I needed a nurse. She came back and scooped me up, allowing me
to put all of my weight on her as I struggled to get back to my bed.
As my nurse tried to lay me back down I felt a gush from my
right side. The fluid. Dr.
Beiter had covered all of the areas that had been infected with
endometriosis with gauze and then put a special wash over it. It was coming out of my incisions. Bright pink and red fluid, almost looking
like blood entirely, poured from my side.
I cried in pain and in fear. It
wouldn’t stop. Then the left side. More blood.
It trickled down my side, around to my back, soaking my gown, my sheets,
my bed. One set of sheets, then two,
then three. I was going through linens
faster than they were available. I couldn’t
keep doing this all night. The nurse
spoke to the doctor who wanted the fluid to come out faster.
She went and got a weighted vest. Twenty pounds. She placed it over my torso, covering the
incisions, forcing out the fluid, creating waves of shock and pain that caused
me to see stars. This is not what I had
imagined. This is not what I
wanted. Yet I did this to myself. I chose this for myself. That is what made it so awful. My surgery was elective. It wasn’t life-saving. I would have survived, albeit in pain,
without it.
Hours passed as I laid in the recovery room, unable to go to
the bathroom. The harsh realization that
I wouldn’t be going home that night set in and I became scared. What
was going to happen to me? When would I
feel better? The pain was so great,
yet I was unwilling to take anything stronger than Motrin for fear that a more
substantial drug would cause me to become nauseated and vomit. I knew that would be too painful to handle,
so I kept up with the Motrin and bathroom breaks until finally, it was time to
move to an overnight room.
It was late in the evening and visiting hours were long past
over. Jonathan was told he had to
leave. My heart broke as he left to go
home and I was left there alone. I knew
I had long hours ahead of me and I didn’t want to face them without my constant
supporter. However, I had no
choice. I moved to my room and was met
by my new nurse and her solution to getting me to go to the bathroom: a
catheter. My legs shook and I wept,
crying out because of yet another, foreign pain. When
would this end?
I had two more days of this misery. I wasn’t allowed to take anything by mouth,
so no food or drink. Getting up to go to
the bathroom lead to a fainting episode, resulting in Jonathan being kicked out
of the room and a team with a crash cart came barreling inside. The bacteria in my gut went so crazy due to
the heavy amounts of fluids that I had a dozen bouts of diarrhea a day. My entire body swelled to epic proportions
due to the fluid and lack of movement, even parts of my body that I didn’t know
were capable of swelling.
As I laid in my hospital bed I truly wondered if I would die. My incisions bled on and off, so much so that
there was the chance they needed to open me back up. I could barely move, the pain was so
great. Only after day three was I
allowed to eat again. Only after I
finally agreed to take a pain pill was I allowed to go home. The experience was terrifying, excruciating,
and so amazingly worth it. If I had
known the immense joy and love I would feel in just a few months time, my pain
would have seemed nonexistent.
More to come on my recovery and my next steps to conception!
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