Day 295: What a difference a day makes….

Well, part two of reconstruction took place.  Mom, sis, brother-in-law and I took off for the hospital around 4:15 am, traffic in the Puget Sound should not have been bad that time of day, but it was raining… I know, that should not matter here, but if you live here, you know it does.

We got there in plenty of time (10 minutes) and whose idea was it to have the hangry patient drive anyway?  Checked in, went through the usual battery of pre-operative tests, including a pregnancy test.  Which by the way, you never ever are worried about being pregnant until you are about to go into surgery, Murphy’s Law superstitious thing I guess… there is no way I can be… but there is still that OMG… what if? It could ruin everything…. Stupid starving thoughts at 6:20 am while getting dressed in your beautiful hospital wear.

Mom decides she will go back with me, but of course the second she heads off to find the powder room (after scary car ride with aforementioned hangry patient driver) they take me back.  So sis came along.

Check in nurse was great, sunny disposition while asking me about all the potential things that might be wrong with me prior to me taking me to the basement.  She even gave me lip balm.  Seriously… the morning of surgery shower with no lotion, no lip balm, no water…  Lip balm seemed like a gift from above.  Sis tagged out, mom stepped in and she got to head to the basement with me.

One of the nurses who works pre-op downstairs remembered me (scary right?).  The basement is interesting, just a bunch of us with a family member hanging out waiting for our surgeons, anesthesia docs and so on.  My surgeon came down, met my mom and talked with me about size and type.  This is an odd conversation.  She asks is it important that they be “bigger” or is size really important.  (I saw your eyes roll reading that…)  Anyway, I look at her and say, “No, size is not important just make them look, well not normal because they will never look “normal” but just make them look the “best” that you can make them look all things considered.”  Ok she says.  Then commences drawing on me with her surgical marker… and I remind her… I forgot my Lymphedema bracelet again… so she writes in huge purple letters, “NO BP/IV” on my left arm.  We talk about the AlloDerm (cadaver tissue), procedure, goals, cleavage maybe… then she mentions that I will need to take off my surgical pants when in surgery because of the liposuction for the fat transfer and I give her my post surgical garment that I have had to explain to nurse after nurse like I am smuggling chips into the theater… We are good to go.

Next comes the anesthesia doc, she is nice enough, I just ask her to leave my teeth intact. She says she will do her best and starts my IV.  At this point, my mom goes in search of the exit and a few moments later, I am walking myself into the operating room again.  All the nurses introduce themselves, wish I could remember them, surprised they did that.  Doctor is there to remind everyone to take the britches off – everything is harder when attached to an IV pole… know that?  I go about getting situated on the bed, honestly the whole pre-op floor was cheery this day and so was the surgical team.  Once I get situated I mention again how it is important to me that I am asleep before they strap my arms down, I don’t want to wake with that as my last memory.  Funny thing about that.  My surgeon said that they used to completely disrobe people for surgery but they did it after people were out, but people would wake in recovery upset that their clothes were gone and it made things really hard on the recovery nurses so they worked to get the policy changed.  “Imagine she says, you go in for surgery on your wrist, wake up in recovery without your clothes!  I’d be upset too!”  Yeah… me too.

So… we are all just chit chatting away like we are having coffee and Danish and then….

I wake up in the most EFFING IMMENSE PAIN EVER.  No joke.  WHAT FRESH HELL HAS BEEN UNLEASHED ON MY BODY??  I am in tears….. recovery nurses asks my pain level on a scale of 1-10… I’m like 12… freaking 12… OMG!  What the hell…. and then sweet sweet pain pump… it took awhile to get that under control but once we did, I was good and loopy the rest of the day.  I am sure I said a lot of stupid things, but probably didn’t do many stupid things being stuck in bed with sequencers on my legs, an IV and the blessed pain pump button.

Oh and speaking of Murphy’s Law, I only mention this for the irony and laugh the ladies will get… what came to visit me not long after I got into recovery… yep… that would be the opposite of being pregnant.  Thank you body for literally putting the cherry on top of the day.

Sleep sweet sleep.

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