Feelin' Stronger Every Day

The good news is that I came home the same day from my gallbladder surgery and have been feeling better every day.

The bad news is that my gall bladder did not weigh 40 lbs. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it didn't even weigh ONE pound. AND I'm also pretty sure that the surgeon didn't do some complimentary liposuction while she was rooting around my stomach area.

So I'll just have to be happy that the surgery went well, the recovery is going smoothly and that I should be back at the Weight Watchers scale in a week or two.

I DID manage to score some really cute (I'm serious) yellow booties in the hospital. I was a fall risk, so they had to give me the booties. Not that they wanted to. The conversation with the nurse went something like this:

NURSE: Why do you use a cane?

ME: I have cervical spinal stenosis that causes me to have leg weakness and balance problems.

NURSE: But do you ever fall?

ME: Well, I trip a lot, but the cane keeps me from falling.

NURSE: Have you ever fallen?

ME: The cane keeps me from falling, when I trip.

NURSE: So when was the last time you fell?

ME: THE CANE KEEPS ME FROM FALLING.

NURSE: So you've never fallen?

ME: I fell once.

NURSE: So you'll need the booties.

I also got a bracelet that said FALL RISK and a big sign on my IV's stating FALL RISK.

I also got a special RED bracelet announcing to the world that I have an allergy. My allergy is to surgical adhesive strips, which I need to explain to everyone because it's not (I guess) a normal allergy. I frankly wouldn't even mention it except that if a real adhesive strip is used and someone rips it off, it takes the first few layers of my skin with it. And that hurts and blisters and bleeds. In fact, during my second surgery about 10 years ago I did not mention this sensitivity (because it wasn't considered an allergy 10 years ago ... now everything is an allergy) to the nurses, who ripped off the dressings to my surgical wounds and then (I'm not kidding) ran screaming from the room because of the mess left behind. Then she yelled at ME for not telling her to be gentle.

Anyway, I got the special red bracelet and then had to tell everyone what I was allergic to. And what happened when the adhesive was used (they have paper tape that doesn't do this, by the way, so I think the bracelet should have read PAPER TAPE and not ALLERGY). By the fourth or fifth telling of this, the nurses were trying to figure out if BAND-AIDS were all right to use. I told them that band aids were fine as long as they let ME remove them. So when I woke up in the recovery room I had a bunch of band aids AND the adhesive strips. So clearly no one was listening to me. Or no one cared. Or both.

I did manage to get out of the hospital pretty quickly. I had to wait about three additional hours for my surgery, which meant I had to get me and my leg compressor thingies and my IV with the big FALL RISK sign to the bathroom two more times than I should have, and they finally decided to turn ON my IV because I was getting woozy from lackofoodia. But once things started to happen, they happened fast.

I noted the clock in the operating room at 3:05 p.m. and then woke up fully in recovery at around 4:30 or so. I did wake up sooner than that, when they were suctioning out my throat after the breathing tube was removed, surprising the nurses who then gave me a shot of something to put me back to sleep. (It wasn't gross or painful, just sort of funny when I spoke to them about the junk in the throat...)

They gave me four saltine crackers and a can of ginger ale and Rob came and got me. I was home in my house by 6:30 p.m.

The last few days have been fine with recovery. I took a couple of percocet for the pain, but stopped taking them yesterday. I managed to get the girls off the school bus Thursday afternoon and onto the bus Friday morning, so things are slowly returning to normal.

Oh, and I MUST say that Rob has redeemed himself as a nurse. He managed to keep the girls out of my bedroom that first night, managed to get everyone off to school the next morning and even made me some toast. So, he's a keeper.

Thanks also to my friends and family who made dinner, sent flowers, called, prayed or in any way supported me, Rob and the girls during this time. I'm glad it's behind me now and hope that the recovery continues as smoothly as it has.

And that by this time next weekend I'll be eating a cheeseburger and fries! With a side of butter. :)

Oh and for those who only come to see cute kid pictures, here are two of Hannah and Liz at one of our last times at the pool this summer (can you see Hannah in the bottom photo?):