So I just got back from a weekend in the hospital, I got an abdominal myomectomy,
to have several large fibroid tumors removed from my uterus. Fibroids are said to be
almost always benign. But they must be always benign because about 30 doctors have
seen my fibroids in utrasound and they never told me to take them out unless they hurt
or they are filling up the uterus blocking fertility or if they make you look fat as hell.
They were growing at a fast rate and the one on the front on my uterus was
allegedly the size of a cantaloupe. When I lay down it would float up and look like I
was in my second trimester of pregnancy. Because they were so big I had to have a
large cut into my lower abdomen and have my uterus pulled out and they would remove
them. Taking around one out an hour I was told my whole uterus was chock full of them.
I told one friend there are a million fibroids in there, she said the surgery will take a
million hours then. I was also told I have to lay around and not work for a month
due to the lack of intact abs. So ..
Friday morning surgery was scheduled for 9:15 am at Rush Presbyterian. I was
supposed to be there at 6:15 am to do bloodwork. Ian drove me downtown via the Ike
at 6 am the sun had not yet risen and I was surprised of the matter of factness of my
mood and at the beautiful night skyline we were driving toward. There were glowing
clouds behind the skyscrapers.
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Ok its a bad picture sorry
Ian dropped me off at the entrance to look for parking. I checked in and told them
my husband was my emergency contact and the person to make decisions for me upon
my not being able to by myself. They told me to go to floor 5. I checked in at floor 5
they asked me if I had any family with me I said my husband was on the way. He said
he could give my husband a pager. I sat in the waiting room. I saw it was 6:15.
The room was fancy and reminded me of the movie total recall. I looked at the 15
people of all makes and models. There was a hispanic couple in my immediate view.
I wondered which was getting surgery, the man had very nervous body language. A
person in a lab coat and name tag appeared and called a name it was of the
woman in that hispanic couple. She took them somewhere. Ian found me and I asked
him if he was given a pager. He said no but they took down his cell #. I tried to crack
a joke referencing an NWA song and said "he didnt give you a little bit of gold and a pager?"
he then sang it as he is apt to do. Shortly we were called by a tall thin woman
with a perm that still looked wet, She took us to a sterile environment.
A holding area room seperated by paper curtains with a gurnee table in the middle.
I sat in a chair and saw a sad lonely older man looking at me and Ian from an adjacent
cubicle. The nurse asked me questions and told me to take everything off and put
on a gown. Ian looked green and I know he didn't like medical things so I asked him to go
to work as they came in to take blood. He left and the nurse thought he was afraid of
blood. I laid there in the robe and watched as young 20 something residents
paced back and forth. There were about 5 of them and they seemed nervous and
and like they didn't know what to do with themselves. They were talking to each other
and were saying that everybody at work is sick with a fever or rotovirus. One resident
said he had so much coffee his hand was shaking.
One resident came in and asked me if he could ask me questions. I said ok but I
was annoyed at his unsure approach and crumpled up piece of paper he
wrote on.
He asked me questions about my health history. As he was asking me questions a
more confident breezy woman came in introduced herself as the
operational nurse and said "so I hear your going to get rid of some fibroid friends"
I was relieved to be in her care instead of this unsure young man who was now listening
to my heart as he was clearly using me as a specimen. She informed me that this
surgery was notorious for causing blood loss and wanted me to sign a waver that
I would get a blood transfusion if needed. The waiver most likely exonerated
the hospital for the tiny possibility that they would give me blood tainted with something.
I signed it. They backed out telling me an anasthesiologist would be in shortly.
I looked at the clock it was almost 9:15.
I prayed for more strength. I felt an urge to leave. Every five minutes I'd look at the
clock and see it was well past 9:15. A young woman came up to me introduced
herself as a resident and asked it she could watch my surgery. She had a great smile
that she flashed and I said sure. And to the young man that was wasting my time
with questions earlier who was right next to her, I asked him if he would watch my
surgery, he told me he was going to scrub in. Ok I said, thinking fucking great
(sarcastic).
At about 10 am a man of Indian descent came in introduced himself as P (something)
the Anasthesiologist on staff. He had a ziplock bag of needles and tournecuts and
alcohol wipes. He used my abdomen as a work station as he set up and asked me the
same questions Ive been asked all morning. He put a needle in the back of my hand and
fed it to a saline drip. I marveled aloud at how the drip goes through the blood stream.
He explained how it goes to the heart first and then all the organs. I liked his bedside
manor and that he explained things, he told me my surgery was late since a nurse called
in sick and they needed to find another nurse. He threw a shower cap on my head, it went
over both eyes, he told me he liked football. He explained that they would give me
oxygen and feed a tube into my lungs during the surgery and at the end he would ask
me if I heard him and have me squeeze his hand then take out the tube. He said
something rough would be going on at some point that will make my mouth bruise.
He told me he would give me something for my nerves. In a minute I asked what he had
given me. He said it was similar to paxil. I loved it.
They wheeled me into the OR. It was a resplendent room of lights and many
nobbed machinery and thin high up table in the middle. They transferred me to a table.
The anasthesiologist asked me from behind my head to think of my favorite vacation
destination. I said ok. Then he asked what it was. I said my back yard, I'm not much of a
traveler. But I don't think I got the whole sentence out. I was out.
I woke to the vague ability to understand that someone was whispering in my ear
and saying the surgery went well and they didn't need to give me a transfusion.
(I don't know who that was man or woman) I was in a room opposite a woman at a
computer she asked me to rate my pain at a one to ten scale and drugged me
accordingly through her computer. She said I had a morphine drip that I could
press to give myself morphine and that it would never over dose. But that she
gave me other drugs just then for the pain. A tiny black man came in and
wheeled me through the halls to my room. We had a nice pleasant conversation
about something I don't know what. He dropped me off at room 617
and a woman put underwear on me and I noticed I had on a different
robe and a catheter. and that my mom was walking in and may have seen me sans
underpants, especially considering how she looked I think she did. I
squeezed her hand and in a rough voice told her I loved her. she told me she
loved me and asked the person there that might have been my nurse for water,
They brought in a very huge glass of water and my mom seemed shocked and angered
at the hugeness of the glass. She was flabbergasted. I was confused. (She told me later
that my voice was slow and slurring but I didn't notice). Like a child, I made her
read me a story from one of the 5 books I brought. She left and I listened to Cuban
music and felt good and really was able to enjoy the music. I pressed the morphine
drip every once in a while and would drift off into the sound waves.
The morphine was makes you go into an almost sleep state, but if someone
called your name you would be up in a second and feeling wide awake. My nurse
woke me up a lot to check my vitals or get me anything. I think her name was
Margaret. Everything but water made me throw up. I had jello I threw up in the
cover for the hospital food container. The next day I had a nurse named Tara
and her sidekick, a training nurse that nervously laughed at everything
said or done. They took out my catheter and got me up to walk.
I was told to wash my face. I was walking but the movement
made me throw up. The nurse Tara told me to go into the bathroom and wash my
face and other places. I looked in the mirror wondering
why she told me to wash my face five different times, I didn't see anything
but washed anyway. I came out of the bathroom she was gone but another little lady
was there and she wanted to tell me that she was the nutritionist and that I was
on clear liquids diet because I need to let my gi system rest. As she was saying this I
started to need to throw up but she was standing in the way of the bathroom I thought
my retching was obvious as I pointed to the bathroom that she was in front of.
I finally grabbed a small bedpan pushed past her, throwing up in the bed pan and
the floor of the bathroom as the woman stood there looking like I ruined her day or life.
After barfing (and not washing my face) I said so what did you want to tell me about
the diet? She said that just about covers it and left. I then listened to hours of really
easy listening on spotify. I wondered why I never liked it before as I now thought it
was the tops.
My surgeon came in said everything went well and did I want to see a picture of my
fibroids I said yes. She said do I want her to forward the pic of the fibroids I said yes.
One was as big as a cantaloupe and the others were the size of tomatoes. She left and
later a woman came in and asked if I wanted a picture with my baby, I said I didn't have
a baby. Or probably slurred it. Oh I realized I'm in a uterine unloading section and that's
why there is a picture of a baby on the wall.
There didn't seem to be any signs of complications so far
and I am only on 400 mg of ibuprophen every 6 hours now.
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Great jokes could have been said, prat falls. I was eviscerated and re put back together.
Undressed re dressed.
All lost to me. But who cares as long as I am now on the mend.
