surgery results

Morning of surgery:

I wake up.  I’ve thought of this day for months since “tentatively scheduling” surgery, while hoping that I wouldn’t need to have it if we got pregnant before May 17th.  But surgery day arrived, and still- no bump.  Was it time? Yes.  It had been nearly one year since we conceived for the second time. We were moving in 2 months, and I was ready to do SOMETHING to help our chances of having a family some day.

That morning, I felt mostly at peace. Part of me was so excited that having answers was only a few hours away. Part of me was nervous about anesthesia, catheters and IV’s. Part of me was nervous about the pain. And part of me still wondered if I would go through all of this for nothing.  Walking into the hospital, the doubts began to set in. What if my doctor got in there and didn’t see a reason for our two miscarriages and now a year of trying with no success? What if my doctor found something that made him doubt my ability to conceive again? I asked Tony if he still wanted this as we walked through the hospital doors. “Yes,” was all I needed to hear to keep moving forward.

After the signing consents at the registration desk, I was banded with a hospital ID bracelet. Suddenly it was real- and the tears began to well up.  I work in a hospital environment.  Beeping pumps, IV’s, alcohol wipes, gloves, the one size fits all hospital gowns are so familiar to me.  But being on the other side of it? Not so familiar.   It was very strange, almost surreal when I had to wipe down my body with chlorhexidine wipes.  They smelled.  And they made my skin sticky.  I felt like I was preparing my body for scientific experimentation.

I had 3 IV starts to get my 2 IV sites necessary for my surgery.   The procedure uses a DaVinci Robot to rotate my body for as much visualization of my internal organs as possible.  My anethesiologist insists upon 2 IV sites because depending on what position I was in, she might not be able to reach my arm with the IV.   I start IV’s on babies frequently.  It’s become routine, automatic, even second nature.   We follow our pain management protocol, with swaddling and sucrose administration.   But when my nurses started my IV’s in my wrists,  I felt a great deal of pain.   It made me appreciate how much pain we cause these NICU babies. 

My doctor stopped by just before they wheeled me back to the OR.  He explained the risks of the procedure, and thought it would take around three hours.   He told Tony that he would call to update him once he opened me up and got some visual of how bad my endometriosis was.   He told me that my head would be lower than my body during surgery, so my face might have some swelling afterwards.   He told me that I could expect to be incredibly bloated with gas and fluid in the following week or so.   For those of you who are reading this who are unfamiliar with laprascopic procedures, air is pumped into your abdominal cavity to lift the intestines away from the ovaries and uterus in my case.  The air must get reabsorbed on its own after surgery, which can create some pretty intense gas pains.

I donned my cap, one size fits all gown, and much-too-big for me yellow fall risk socks and stole one more kiss from my husband.   I was wheeled back to the OR, and remember a nurse’s face as I drifted off to sleep.  When I woke up, I had the sensation that I was floating, in a dreamlike state.  There was a male nurse, asking me to rate my pain on a scale of 0-10.   I told him a 3.  All I felt was feeling of being incredible full.  I was also scared of the pain that I feared was coming.  Funny thing for any nurses reading this, the first thing that I remember hearing was someone saying “she got 10 units.”  My initial thought was- holy !!!!! I got 10 units of blood? That’s insane!!  But they obviously weren’t talking about me, and I hope they weren’t talking about blood.  I was in PACU for a short while and then was wheeled into my recovery room.  I had a very sweet nurse named Deb. She told me that she would go get Tony from the waiting room.  It seemed to take forever, but soon he joined me.   He walked in the room and I remember his face lighting up when he saw that I was okay.  First, I asked him if my face was swollen.  And then I asked him what Dr. C.  said when he updated him after my surgery.  He told me that Dr. C. said that I had endometriosis, but not so severe that he was concerned about long term infertility.  He said that he thought it definitely contributed to our struggle to conceive and to stay pregnant.  He explained that the inflammation he saw might have made it hard for our embryos to implant in my uterine wall, possibly causing the miscarriages.

This was everything that I wanted to hear.  There was a reason that we miscarried.  My sense that something was wrong “in there” all along- was proved to be true.  In the midst of all of the discomfort, I felt at ease.  I had finally gotten some answers.  And then I felt nauseated and asked my nurse for some zofran.  An hour later I woke up and Deb suggested that I try to get up and use the bathroom.  It was all downhill from there.

I’d had a catheter during surgery which was removed right before I left the OR.   Anesthesia can sometimes cause the bladder to be “shy” or “sleepy” after surgery.  I also have a “shy” bladder by nature.   If there are too many people waiting in the bathroom for me to go- I get flustered and then worry that people wonder why I am taking so long.  I have walked out of a public restroom too many times in my life still needing to go.  But this would be different, right?  I would be fine, right?  Sure, I wasn’t home in my own environment, but I had a nice, clean private room with a private bathroom.  It should be no problem, right?

Fast forward to 4 hours later when I was begging my nurse to put a catheter back in.  She had hung two IV bags of fluids, hoping to help wake my bladder up.    I had chugged water after water after water.   I had sat on the toilet praying, googling “how to wake your bladder up after surgery,” holding my wrist under the sink’s running water.  I tried standing up and sitting right back down again.  I tried walking around the recovery unit.  I tried watching a show on Netflix to distract me.  And my bladder just kept getting more full.  I could have gone home by 4pm if I could have just peed.

9pm:  My nurse calls my doctor to tell him that I still can’t pee.  My options: 1. have a foley catheter inserted, and stay overnight in the hospital. (NO!) 2. Continue to stay in recovery until I can go. (Also NO.) I was so tired and just wanted to go home.  3. Have my nurse drain my bladder and send me home. If I can’t pee on my own in 8 hours, then I have to come back to the hospital.

I chose #3.  It was so late in the evening that Tony had to leave to go get my prescriptions before our pharmacy closed so I was alone.  I was shaking violently before my nurse straight cathed me.  I was in pain, largely from how full my bladder was.  I also started to notice how much fluid I had retained from surgery, and how severe my bloating was.  I actually had what looked like a baby’s head protruding from my right side.  It was all fluid.

The catheter hurt like hell.  I remember screaming and shaking, but then relief started to set in.  I could go home.  She emptied a LITER of urine from my bladder.  “Nurse bladder?”  Yes.  It was very humbling to have someone invade your personal space in such a way.  My nurse was so great.  I felt appreciation for how important a nurse can be to a patient.

Tony returned just in time to listen to my discharge instructions.  I tried to focus as best as I could but (thank goodness that they actually give you a printed copy) all I could think of was how excited I was to get out of there.  Sure enough, as soon as I got home, I peed tons for the next several hours with no problem.  That was the worst part about surgery by far.

P.S. I felt like I had the best husband for the rest of that week.  He didn’t leave my side, kept the dogs from crawling on my incisions, and fed me lots of ice cream.  He was wonderful.

Recovery was not terrible.  I took 2 weeks off from work- and since my Dr. did some local “blocks” in my abdomen, I didn’t feel any incision pain for almost 3 days.  I only took a narcotic twice for pain, mostly to prevent pain during the middle of the night. The rest of the time I just took ibuprofen.  My pants fit again after 1 week, but after 2 weeks they fit even better.  The bloating moved gradual from my abdomen, into my groin and then even hung out in my thighs for a bit, so pants fitting well was something to celebrate! I had 3 incisions with dissolvable stitches.  One in my belly button, and two on either side of my belly button.  After about a week, the steri-strips fell off on their own.

I’m now 3 weeks post op.  My incisions are healing, the bloating is almost gone, and I feel pretty much back to normal.  Woohoo- it’s over! I gained answers that have plagued my brain for almost two years.  I also feel a renewed sense of HOPE in the TTC department of my life.

Up next: packing for the move, IRELAND, and beginning our lives in Kansas City…