My mom kept reminding me that a hysterectomy is a more serious surgery than a resection. And that I've now had 2 surgeries in 3 weeks. This procedure was laparoscopic and done with the robot and includes just 5 little holes, like the other one. But Dr. Evans did have to take out a whole organ rather than just a piece of an organ, so it's understandable it hurts a little more.
The benefit of modern medicine is pain medicine. When you are in pain, take the meds. That's what I did. Chris kept encouraging me to hold off from taking the pain meds if I could stand it. He said the pain meds give you constipation and the fewer pills I took, the better it would be later. It's an argument I couldn't quite get behind. I was in pain immediately and he was worried about bowel back-up later. I thought, "Well, it hurts now. So let's take the meds now and deal with a pooping problem later." Good thought, not a good decision.
My husband is not stupid. He doesn't just make this shit up. I took the pain meds for 2 1/2 days straight - every 4 hours. If I didn't feel like a million bucks, I took a pill. I was uncomfortable all the time and in pain a lot of the time. And when else can you just pop Percocet regularly?? If not post surgery, then when? Well, I paid for it later.
I'll spare you the details. My poor mother, sisters and some of my close friends were getting a blow by blow of my bowel movements (or lack there of) for a few days. Chris became accustomed to me sitting on the bowl and screaming, "Oh god. Oh fuck. OH. MY. GOD." as i tried to successfully go to the bathroom. I did decide though, if passing a poop after 4 days of pain meds is at all like going through contractions during labor - thank god for the hysterectomy. I couldn't do it. I was Lamaze breathing while sitting on the toilet just trying to get through the pain. It wasn't pretty.
What also wasn't pretty was the site of me soaking wet several times a night. I was having night sweats. Bad night sweats. Wet through your pajamas night sweats. So damp your hair is wet and you need to change the sheets night sweats. At first I thought, "Is this menopause??" And how can you get through that as quickly as possible? But Dr. Evans left my ovaries in, so this hysterectomy did not plunge me straight into menopause. I have to wait until I'm 50 to go through these night sweats again. We're not sure exactly why I was having such bad sweats, but thank goodness friends and family bought me new pajamas.
This is what my bedroom floor looked like one morning. Three piles of soaking wet pajamas. I woke up every two hours and was dripping wet. I'd get out of bed and be cold from being damp. Then strip down right where I was standing, leaving a damp pile of clothes. I'd pull another cute pj set out of the drawer and get back in bed. I did this 3 times in one night. That means I wore a total of 4 pairs of pajamas. And if you look closely at the top of the picture, you'll see a beach towel on the bed. That's there because the sheets were so wet. I thought the best thing to do would be to sleep on a semi-absorptive towel.
It was not fun. But it was kind of funny. It was wonderful to have Ashley here for a few days to do all the laundry. She loves laundry and she's a good sister.
No comments:
Post a Comment