The night before my surgery, I was a complete mess.  My mind was in a million places and I was pacing the floor like a maniac.  I could not focus on one thing for long.  The twins were driving me crazy and nothing seemed to be going right.  I just wanted a peaceful evening so I could relax and mentally prepare myself for the surgery.  When all of the children finally went to sleep, I should have been in bed right after them.  But nope.  I found all kinds of stuff to do instead of sleep.  I finished packing a suitcase for my hospital stay.  I annoyed my husband a bit.  I started cleaning the bedroom.  I walked around our bedroom aimlessly.

Finally, my husband told me to get my ass in the bed.  He didn’t say it in a mean way but he it was stern.  I chuckled a bit on the inside then jumped in the bed.  It took me a long while to go to sleep because I kept praying that everything would go well with the surgery.  I don’t think that I had been this scared about anything in a very long time.

The next morning, I was a completely different person.  I was not worried anymore about the surgery.  I knew that everything would be okay because I left it in the hands of God.  JT took the twins to school early that morning.  I didn’t want them at the hospital with us because they would do nothing but worry about me and cry when they would see me after surgery.  I thought to myself that I had put them through enough as of late.  Also, hospitals are recommending for children to not visit hospitals due to the flu season unless they absolutely have to.

We left the house to go to the hospital late… and yes this was my fault.  I should have woken up a little bit earlier.  Then when we got on 270 North, the traffic was horrible, due to the rain.  I tried to stay calm and not worry about being late to the hospital.  I could tell that JT was panicking (on the inside).  The hospital wanted us there at 7:30 and we arrived at 8:00.  Not that bad right?

Despite being late, registration and preparation for surgery still went well.  After registration, my mom arrived at the hospital and joined me in the waiting room.  I was very happy to see her and appreciated the support.  My BFF arrived shortly after my surgery began.  And of course my husband was there too.  My aunt stayed at my house this week to take care of baby Alexander.  What would I do without my family and friends?

The drug they gave me right before surgery was amazing.  I remember the nurse injecting it into the IV, I said I love you to JT, gave him a kiss, the nurse pulled back the curtain to roll me out and BAM… that is all I remember until I woke up in the recovery room.

The recovery room was like an assembly line in hell.  I struggled to see things clearly and I eventually found a clock to see that it was 12:00.  I later found out that surgery lasted about 1.5 hours so  I was in recovery for about 1.5 hours before I woke up.  The nurse was a complete bitch to me in recovery.  I was experiencing pains that I have never experienced before.  Muscle spasms fiercely shot down my abdomen and I cried out for help.  The nurse says, “Your having muscle spasms because you just had surgery.  You’re going to have to be quiet because other people are in here recovering too.”

A couple of minutes passed, then the nurse checked on other patients then came back to me.  She injected pain medicine into my IV.  A minute or so later… more spasms.  I scream.  Nurse says, “I just gave you pain medicine 2 minutes ago. I can’t keep giving it to you closely together.”  I later asked the nurse when I could see my husband and mom.  She responds, “Do you see any other family members back here?  Families cannot come back here in recovery.  You’ll see them later.”

This went on and on for a long time.  Eventually, I received enough pain medication to start dosing off a little bit.  I woke up at about 1:30 and a couple of nurses were taking me to my room.  I was so thankful to be leaving the assembly line of hell.

I had some very bad experiences with not only this nurse but also later when I arrived in my room.  I reported the experiences to a head nurse and shortly after that, everyone started responding to my calls quicker and speaking to me in a positive tone.

I’m truly disappointing with the care from the nurses.  When I gave birth to Alexander at the same hospital, the nurses took great care of me.  This time around, everything went wrong.  Some nurses are really in the wrong field and suck at being compassionate.  Despite this, I am thankful for the charge nurse for listening to my concerns and my two doctors for taking great care of me.

Initially, the plan was to go home the day after surgery.  With my pain level being a 10 (on the scale of 1-10) all day Monday, I knew that this would not happen.  I ended up going home late Wednesday evening.

My incision is very long… it starts below my sternum and goes all the way down to my cesarean scar.  I did not measure this yet but I would guesstimate about 10 inches.  I have a bunch of staples and stitches going down the incision.  This afternoon, I went to the doctor and my surgeon removed my JP tubes and a few of the stitches and staples.  I will go back to the doctor next Wednesday to have the rest of the staples and stitches removed.

I’m taking vicodin and ibuprofen for the pain and this is helping a great deal. At this moment, my abdomen is a little tender though.  The numbness is there but this is normal.  The area below my chest still hurts where the JP tubes were removed.

The road to recovery has been challenging but thankfully I have a great deal of support. Without the support, I don’t think I could do this.  The vicodin is kicking in now… so I better put up the laptop.

Technorati Tags: abdomen, diastasis recti, doctor, family, friends, God, hernia, hospital, incision, love, medicine, nurses, prayer, recovery, Staples, stitches, surgeon, surgery, umbilicial hernia, vicodin