Name That Thing

When people say you can't get any sleep in the hospital, they are not joking. I had to spend one night at the Women's and Babies hospital for the hysterectomy and it was the longest night of my life.

First, I didn't feel well. My belly hurt. It was uncomfortable to move and I felt stuck in this hospital bed. It was hard to move to my left or my right. I couldn't reach my phone, the water was always just a few inches too far away, that tray thing wasn't close enough to help, but it was in the way enough that I couldn't put my knees up. I know, complain complain complain. It's just not your own bed.

Every hour, on the hour, someone came in to do something. The only person who I wanted to come in to do something was the nurse with the pain meds. Instead, I got every nursing assistant on the floor and they came in for blood pressure, temperature, oxygen levels, empty the cather catch basin (which I was filling up like a champ even though I couldn't feel I was leaking all this liquid out. Weird.) It wasn't until one lady came in with this contraption that I started paying attention:

WTF?? At first, I thought it could only be one thing - A Swedish-Made Penis Enlarger! It turns out this little do-hicky is some breathing thing. They want to make sure you continue to take large, deep breaths and this is supposed to help. It's actually a little annoying to do but when I was blowing like a champ (no comments, please) and the nurse called me a "show off," I was pleased. I'm a people pleaser and I was suddenly so happy that I had done this new little task so well that she called me a show off. That women told me I had to do it 10 times each hour. A little annoying. When the shift changed and another women came in, she said I only had to do it 5 times an hour. Someone is not making sure the "breathing thing protocol" is the same across the board. Tsk, tsk. (I only did it 5 times an hour.)

Taking a deep breath meant more than just filling my lungs up with air though. I felt like I could take a deep breath because the hysterectomy was over. It felt like a huge burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Was it the right choice? Maybe we'll never know. Either way, it's the choice I made and I have to deal with the consequenses. While I'll still wince at the sight of pretty pregnant people, I hope some deep breathing will help that go away over time.

Physically, I'm still holding my breath a bit. Mainly because it feels better. If you don't breath as much, you abdomen doesn't move as much and therefore it hurts less. I'll keep using this do-hicky. I'm just holding my breath until I know the cancer is gone for good.