The Hospital - part 1 The Surgery

This unattractive picture is of me on June 19th is right before I went into surgery for a "routine" vaginal hysterectomy. I was so nervous but Kenny and my Mom did a pretty good job of keeping me distracted.

This picture is of my ted hose. They were so much fun to put on (I hope you can read my sarcasm here). I was handed my hospital gown, ted hose and non slip hospital socks. I was already a little unsteady from not eating and taking my pill for anxiety. If anyone has ever put on ted hose you know how tight they are. I was in the little bathroom standing there folded in half trying to pull those hose up. I can't even tell you how light headed I was from putting on those stinkin hose. To top it off there is this hole in the bottom so they can check my circulation easily. That hole bugged me to no end. I'm pretty sure it bugged me even while I was under anesthesia.
My surgery ended up lasting from around 12:30 pm until sometime after 7 pm. I wasn't aware of this until I kind of woke up a little in recovery and was told that it was 8:00 pm. I almost died. I couldn't believe how late it was and had no idea what had happened to make my 2 hour surgery last so long. While I was under and being worked on my sister and husband were racing up and down the hall outside the waiting room in a wheelchair. I guess they had tons of fun, I'm glad that they had fun and found something to do to distract themselves. Leave it to those two to think of that as their option for entertainment. I love those two!!

I really wish my mom could have gotten a picture of them playing in the halls of the hospital like that. It would have been great!

Once I was finally moved into my hospital room and could see everyone I found out that the hysterectomy went fine but my uterus was stuck to my bladder and they had to "filet" it apart. This resulted in my bladder being cut 3 times and my ureter to my right kidney being either twisted or cut or both. They had to put a stint in to repair that. They also had to call in a Urologist to fix my bladder. He had to open me up to do the repair and then for some reason they closed me up, then tested my bladder and found it was still leaking so I was opened back up and the final repair to my bladder was done. I couldn't believe how many stitches I ended up with by the end. I was stitched in my vagina for they hysterectomy, in my bladder and in my hip to hip incision. That first night and the next morning I was so thankful for my happy button that I could push for pain meds whenever they little button was blinking. There was a few times when I would just watch the button for it to start blinking.

I was so happy after surgery when I could finally get some ice chips. My mouth was so dry and I was so hungry by 8:00 that evening that I couldn't get enough ice chips. My sister and Kenny were kind to feed me. They even got the spoon in straight so I could get the ice and water in without a big mess. I am so thankful for them and their help.

Due to the injury to my bladder I had to have a folly catheter and drain in my abdomen. Two things that I have never had before. The day after surgery my Aide tried to get me out of bed and try to walk some. I was so weak and in so much pain that I passed out and luckily landed in a chair that Kenny had just moved behind me. When everyone noticed that there was a problem Kenny left the room to get help but my mom stayed and saw me have a seizure right before the Aide couldn't find my pulse and pulled the code lever. I was able to recover without any help other than my Aide slapping me in the face and yelling for me to open my eyes. Unfortunately the doctor didn't believe that I had a seizure and downplayed the code. She actually called it a false code and that it should have never been called. It's nice to know that no pulse doesn't qualify as needing a code, makes me wonder, what does require one then?

I think Kenny was just about ready to scream when the code was over and the first thing I asked was if he had gotten any pictures of the code and the chaos. I guess getting out of the way so they could work on me was more important than taking pictures. Go figure!

On my 4th day of being in the hospital, they sent me home with my catheter and my drain and showed me how to empty both and how to record the amount that was in my drain. There was no instructions on what to watch for if there was any more complications. There was no information on the Urologist who I needed to follow up with and to only call my OBGYN in a couple days to see about getting my drain removed. It was like they just wanted me out of there.

Part 2 to come soon....I've been up for a while and need some rest now.