Seems as if my posting on this blog stopped just as soon as it started, but I was reminded today about how important it is to share my journey, even if, at this point, no one is listening.
Mr D and I arrived at the hospital at 7:30 on leap day for my surgery. We checked in, I changed into my hospital gown, and I got settled into the pre-op room. I have a TERRIBLE needle phobia, but managed to tough it out through the IV (My poor husbands hand may have been slightly broken.. oops!) The surgeon was running late, so my mom had the chance to come back and wait with us for everthing to be ready. We watched TV and I made Mr D take pictures of me... it might look like I'm grabbing my chest, but I was trying to deflate the hot air filled hospital gown!
They took me back to surgery about 11:30, the doctors were all very kind and accomodating, and really helped me feel more comfortable in the minutes before my surgery. The last thing I remember is teh Anesthsiologist asking me about where I like to go hiking, and then I was waking up in post-op!
The pain was pretty intense, and they gave me several doses of morphine (which caused my oxygen levels to drop, and I had to wear oxygen.) It took awhile for them to stabilize me to the point where I could move to recovery. I was pretty loopy and even remember telling the nurse how I don't understand how my dad can wear oxygen all the time because it hurt my nose so badly! Once I was moved over, Mr D was allowed to come back and see me. He says I looked "scary" because I was so out of it and drugged. After a few more hours in recovery, a piece of toast and a walk to the bathroom, they finally released me to go home... about 5 hours later than planned.
We got home and I spent the next few days mostly in bed. I had a really hard time sitting up on my own from a laying down position and was quite bloated the first few days. Mr D helped me a lot, I can't imagine recovering from the surgery alone. I really needed someone to help me to the bathroom, prepare food and help me move pillows and pick things up. I took the narcotics they gave me for a few days, but found that most of the pain came from my body absorbing the gas after surgery. That pain was by far the most terrible part of recovery and I was very happy to see it go away after about 4 days.
It's now been almost 5 weeks since surgery. My scars are healing nicely, and the swelling in my belly button has finally gone down enough that I can see how it looks. The scars are small and I think I can deal with having them for the rest of my life :) Turns out that my endometriosis was pretty bad. The Dr. removed several small cysts from my right fallopian tubes, a very large cyst from my left ovary and extensive implants of endometriosis. It had also caused adhesions that had attached my uterus to my abdominal wall, which she said was probably the source of the majority of my pain during menstruation.
That pretty much sums it up :) I'm happy that the surgery is over, but disappointed that the results were somewhat bad. I guess it could always have been worse, and only time will tell if this will help us get pregnant!
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