Second Surgery Summation

September 25, 2009

Three days after an eight hour surgery that left me in sutures from knee caps to elbows and as I’m blogging I’m as comfortable as comfortable can be and equally as grateful.

As expected my memories around surgery day are sketchy at best. At my request I wasn’t given Versed, the amnesiac sedative they gave me the last time, but being on general anesthesia for so many hours is going to mess things up. It’s just a little odd what I can and can’t remember. I don’t remember riding in the car to the surgery center but I remember checking in at the registration desk. I don’t remember D whispering a prayer into my ear as I headed into OR but I remember walking into OR and laying on the table as the staff made final preparations. I don’t remember changing into the hospital robe but I remember the surgeon doodling on me with Sharpees.

What I remember most clearly was feeling love and prayer surrounding me in a way that was as tangible as something I could hold in my hand. It was so incredibly comforting and moving to me and for those of you who prayed for me that morning, thank you. Your care made a difference. I truly believe that. I had absolutely no fear or anxiety and while my pain was off the charts immediately following surgery and then running high the first 24 hours after returning home, the pain was just pain. If that’s any sense. Through the worst I knew I was being held in love and would be okay. I went into this second surgery holding it as part of my spiritual journey and now having been through it I know that’s exactly what it was but all that it means I’ve yet to uncover.

The surgery itself was an incredible success. The surgeon removed another 10-12 pounds in excess skin from my arms, legs, thighs and breasts even though I weigh 8 pounds more today than the day of surgery due to all the fluids I was given and the swelling that occurs with this type of procedure. Over the next month or two I’ll end up dropping all that weight as the swelling goes down which means my weight will likely level out somewhere around 145. Even with the noticeable swelling the physical results are beyond what I can believe and once I’ve healed up you can expect to see some before and after photos.

So here I am three days after surgery laying in a rental hospital bed in our living room in a new pair of jammies my sweetie bought for me. Renting the hospital bed was a last minute decision made at the urging of a friend and what a great decision it was! With sutures running up my inner thigh from knee to groin and then splitting into a T that runs around nearly 75% of the circumference of both legs, getting up and down is a challenging task at best, made all the more so because I have limited use of my arms since I have sutures running from elbow to armpit that split into T’s of their own. The second gadget I couldn’t be without for more than obvious reasons is my pink-plastic female portable urinal and last but not least my little reaching stick with the pinchers at the end for picking up stuff that’s out of reach and these days nearly everything is. I’ve been swinging that thing in every direction much to my wife’s amusement.

Okay, two stories and then it’s time for another nap in a series of unending naps.

My surgery was on Tuesday morning at 9:00 a.m. I checked out of the surgery center the following morning at 6:00 a.m. and was asleep in my little living room hospital bed within an hour and apparently still drugged out of my mind because a couple hours later when I woke up and saw that the time on my iPhone read 9:00 a.m. I thought it was surgery day and I’d overslept. In a panic I jumped out of the bed, stitches and all, and started yelling “Oh Honey, wake up wake up, we overslept! I missed my surgery!” There I was standing at the bottom of the stairs in my full body compression suit, stitches throbbing and in a full blown panic because I missed my surgery date. It took D assuring me that I’d actually already had my surgery before I realized what was going on and only then did I happen to notice my entire body was hurting like crazy.

I was drifting in and out of sleep the first day home from surgery and my throat was so dry from all the hours of surgery that I had the passing thought of how nice it would be if we had frozen grapes I could suck on. The thought was still in my head when I heard D over on the couch and with my eyes closed I asked her what she was doing. “Oh, I’m just bagging some grapes to put in the freezer for you.” I love it when that kind of thing happens.

That’s all I can pull out of my cotton-stuffed brain for now.

Posted in Reconstructive Surgery