{"id":925,"date":"2017-06-07T13:13:04","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T13:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/?p=925"},"modified":"2017-06-10T12:55:46","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T12:55:46","slug":"surgery-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/07\/surgery-results\/","title":{"rendered":"surgery results"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morning of surgery:<\/p>\n

I wake up. \u00a0I’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. \u00a0But surgery day arrived, and still- no bump. \u00a0Was it time? Yes. \u00a0It had been nearly one year since we conceived for the second time. We were\u00a0moving in 2 months, and I was ready to do SOMETHING to help our chances of having a family some day.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0Walking 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0I work in a hospital environment. \u00a0Beeping pumps, IV’s, alcohol wipes, gloves, the one size fits all hospital gowns are so familiar to me. \u00a0But being on the other side of it? Not so familiar. \u00a0 It was very strange, almost surreal when I had to wipe down my body with chlorhexidine wipes. \u00a0They smelled. \u00a0And they made my skin sticky. \u00a0I felt like I was preparing my body for\u00a0scientific experimentation.<\/p>\n

I had 3 IV starts to get my 2 IV sites necessary for my surgery. \u00a0 The procedure uses a DaVinci Robot to rotate my body for as much visualization of my internal organs as possible. \u00a0My 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. \u00a0 I start IV’s on babies frequently. \u00a0It’s become routine, automatic, even second nature. \u00a0 We follow our pain management protocol, with swaddling and sucrose administration. \u00a0 But when my nurses started my IV’s in my wrists, \u00a0I felt a great deal of pain. \u00a0 It made me appreciate\u00a0how much pain we cause these NICU babies.\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

My doctor stopped by just before they wheeled me back to the OR. \u00a0He explained the risks of the procedure, and thought it would take around three hours. \u00a0 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. \u00a0 He told me that my head would be lower than my body during surgery, so my face might have some swelling afterwards. \u00a0 He told me that I could expect to be incredibly bloated with gas and fluid in the following week or so. \u00a0 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. \u00a0The air must get reabsorbed on its own after surgery, which can create some pretty intense gas pains.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0 I was wheeled\u00a0back to the OR, and remember a nurse’s face as I drifted off to sleep. \u00a0When I woke up, I had the sensation that I was floating, in a dreamlike state. \u00a0There was a male nurse, asking me to rate my pain on a scale of 0-10. \u00a0 I told him a 3. \u00a0All I felt was feeling of being incredible full. \u00a0I was also scared of the pain that I feared was coming. \u00a0Funny thing for any nurses reading this, the first thing that I remember hearing was someone saying “she got 10 units.” \u00a0My initial thought was- holy !!!!! I got 10 units of blood? That’s insane!! \u00a0But they obviously weren’t talking about me, and I hope they weren’t talking about blood. \u00a0I was in PACU for a short while and then was wheeled into my recovery room. \u00a0I had a very sweet nurse named Deb. She told me that she would go get Tony from the waiting room. \u00a0It seemed to take forever, but soon he joined me. \u00a0 He walked in the room and I remember his face lighting up when he saw that I was okay. \u00a0First, I asked him if my face was swollen. \u00a0And then I asked him what Dr. C. \u00a0said when he updated him after my surgery. \u00a0He told me that Dr. C. said that I had endometriosis, but not so severe that he was concerned about long term infertility. \u00a0He said that he thought it definitely contributed to our struggle to conceive and to stay pregnant. \u00a0He explained that the inflammation he saw might have made it hard for our\u00a0embryos to implant in my uterine wall, possibly causing the miscarriages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This was everything that I wanted to hear. \u00a0There was a reason that we miscarried. \u00a0My sense that something was wrong “in there” all along- was proved to be true. \u00a0In the midst of all of the discomfort, I felt at ease. \u00a0I had finally gotten some answers.\u00a0 And then I felt nauseated and asked my nurse for some zofran. \u00a0An hour later I woke up and Deb suggested that I try to get up and use the bathroom. \u00a0It was all downhill from there.<\/p>\n

I’d had a catheter during surgery which was removed right before I left the OR. \u00a0 Anesthesia can sometimes cause the bladder to be “shy” or “sleepy” after surgery. \u00a0I also have a “shy” bladder by nature. \u00a0 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. \u00a0I have walked out of a public restroom too many times in my life still needing to go. \u00a0But this would be different, right? \u00a0I would be fine, right? \u00a0Sure, I wasn’t home in my own environment, but I had a nice, clean private room with a private bathroom. \u00a0It should be no problem, right?<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 4 hours later when I was begging my nurse to put a catheter back in. \u00a0She had hung two IV bags of fluids, hoping to help wake my bladder up. \u00a0 \u00a0I had chugged water after water after water. \u00a0 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. \u00a0I tried standing up and sitting right back down again. \u00a0I tried walking around the recovery unit. \u00a0I tried watching a show on Netflix to distract me. \u00a0And my bladder just kept getting more full. \u00a0I could have gone home by 4pm if I could have just peed.<\/p>\n

9pm: \u00a0My nurse calls my doctor to tell him that I still can’t pee. \u00a0My 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. \u00a03. 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.<\/p>\n

I chose #3. \u00a0It was so late in the evening that Tony had to leave to go get my prescriptions before our pharmacy closed so I was alone. \u00a0I was shaking violently before my nurse straight cathed me. \u00a0I was in pain, largely from how full my bladder was. \u00a0I also started to notice how much fluid I had retained from surgery, and how severe my bloating was. \u00a0I actually had what looked like a baby’s head protruding from my right side. \u00a0It was all fluid.<\/p>\n

The catheter hurt like hell. \u00a0I remember screaming and shaking, but then relief started to set in. \u00a0I could go home. \u00a0She emptied a LITER of urine from my bladder. \u00a0“Nurse bladder?” \u00a0Yes. \u00a0It was\u00a0very humbling to have someone invade your personal space in such a way. \u00a0My nurse was so great. \u00a0I felt appreciation for how important a nurse can be to a patient.<\/p>\n

Tony returned just in time to listen\u00a0to my discharge instructions. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0Sure enough, as\u00a0soon as I got home, I peed tons for the next several hours with no problem. \u00a0That was the worst part about surgery by far.<\/p>\n

P.S. I felt like I had the best husband for the rest of that week. \u00a0He didn’t leave my side, kept the dogs from crawling on my incisions, and fed me lots of ice cream. \u00a0He was wonderful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recovery was not terrible. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0My pants fit again after 1 week, but after 2 weeks they fit even better. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0One in my belly button, and two on either side of my belly button. \u00a0After about a week, the steri-strips fell off on their own.<\/p>\n

I’m now 3 weeks post op. \u00a0My incisions are healing, the bloating is almost gone, and I feel pretty much back to normal. \u00a0Woohoo- it’s over! I gained answers that have plagued my brain for almost two years. \u00a0I also feel\u00a0a renewed sense of HOPE in the TTC department of my life.<\/p>\n

Up next: packing for the move, IRELAND, and beginning our lives in Kansas City…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morning of surgery: I wake up. \u00a0I’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. \u00a0But surgery day arrived, and still- no bump. \u00a0Was it time? Yes. \u00a0It had been nearly one year since we conceived for the second time. We were\u00a0moving 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. \u00a0Walking 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. \u00a0I work in a hospital environment. \u00a0Beeping pumps, IV’s, alcohol wipes, gloves, the one size fits all hospital gowns are so familiar to me. \u00a0But being on the other side of it? Not so familiar. \u00a0 It was very strange, almost surreal when I had to wipe down my body with chlorhexidine wipes. \u00a0They smelled. \u00a0And they made my skin sticky. \u00a0I felt like I was preparing my body for\u00a0scientific experimentation. I had 3 IV starts to get my 2 IV sites necessary for my surgery. \u00a0 The procedure uses a DaVinci Robot to rotate my body for as much visualization of my internal organs as possible. \u00a0My 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. \u00a0 I start IV’s on babies frequently. \u00a0It’s become routine, automatic, even second nature. \u00a0 We follow our pain management protocol, with swaddling and sucrose administration. \u00a0 But when my nurses started my IV’s in my wrists, \u00a0I felt a great deal of pain. \u00a0 It made me appreciate\u00a0how much pain we cause these NICU babies.\u00a0 My doctor stopped by just before they wheeled me back to the OR. \u00a0He explained the risks of the procedure, and thought it would take around three hours. \u00a0 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. \u00a0 He told me that my head would be lower than my body during surgery, so my face might have some swelling afterwards. \u00a0 He told me that I could expect to be incredibly bloated with gas and fluid in the following week or so. \u00a0 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. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0 I was wheeled\u00a0back to the OR, and remember a nurse’s face as I drifted off to sleep. \u00a0When I woke up, I had the sensation that I was floating, in a dreamlike state. \u00a0There was a male nurse, asking me to rate my pain on a scale of 0-10. \u00a0 I told him a 3. \u00a0All I felt was feeling of being incredible full. \u00a0I was also scared of the pain that I feared was coming. \u00a0Funny thing for any nurses reading this, the first thing that I remember hearing was someone saying “she got 10 units.” \u00a0My initial thought was- holy !!!!! I got 10 units of blood? That’s insane!! \u00a0But they obviously weren’t talking about me, and I hope they weren’t talking about blood. \u00a0I was in PACU for a short while and then was wheeled into my recovery room. \u00a0I had a very sweet nurse named Deb. She told me that she would go get Tony from the waiting room. \u00a0It seemed to take forever, but soon he joined me. \u00a0 He walked in the room and I remember his face lighting up when he saw that I was okay. \u00a0First, I asked him if my face was swollen. \u00a0And then I asked him what Dr. C. \u00a0said when he updated him after my surgery. \u00a0He told me that Dr. C. said that I had endometriosis, but not so severe that he was concerned about long term infertility. \u00a0He said that he thought it definitely contributed to our struggle to conceive and to stay pregnant. \u00a0He explained that the inflammation he saw might have made it hard for our\u00a0embryos to implant in my uterine wall, possibly causing the miscarriages. This was everything that I wanted to hear. \u00a0There was a reason that we miscarried. \u00a0My sense that something was wrong “in there” all along- was proved to be true. \u00a0In the midst of all of the discomfort, I felt at ease. \u00a0I had finally gotten some answers.\u00a0 And then I felt nauseated and asked my nurse for some zofran. \u00a0An hour later I woke up and Deb suggested that I try to get up and use the bathroom. \u00a0It was all downhill from there. I’d had a catheter during surgery which was removed right before I left the OR. \u00a0 Anesthesia can sometimes cause the bladder to be “shy” or “sleepy” after surgery. \u00a0I also have a “shy” bladder by nature. \u00a0 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. \u00a0I have walked out of a public restroom too many times in my life still needing to go. \u00a0But this would be different, right? \u00a0I would be fine, right? \u00a0Sure, I wasn’t home in my own environment, but I had a nice, clean private room with a private bathroom. \u00a0It should be no problem, right? Fast forward to 4 hours later when I was begging my nurse to put a catheter back in. \u00a0She had hung two IV bags of fluids, hoping to help wake my bladder up. \u00a0 \u00a0I had chugged water after water after water. \u00a0 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. \u00a0I tried standing up and sitting right back down again. \u00a0I tried walking around the recovery unit. \u00a0I tried watching a show on Netflix to distract me. \u00a0And my bladder just kept getting more full. \u00a0I could have gone home by 4pm if I could have just peed. 9pm: \u00a0My nurse calls my doctor to tell him that I still can’t pee. \u00a0My 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. \u00a03. 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. \u00a0It was so late in the evening that Tony had to leave to go get my prescriptions before our pharmacy closed so I was alone. \u00a0I was shaking violently before my nurse straight cathed me. \u00a0I was in pain, largely from how full my bladder was. \u00a0I also started to notice how much fluid I had retained from surgery, and how severe my bloating was. \u00a0I actually had what looked like a baby’s head protruding from my right side. \u00a0It was all fluid. The catheter hurt like hell. \u00a0I remember screaming and shaking, but then relief started to set in. \u00a0I could go home. \u00a0She emptied a LITER of urine from my bladder. \u00a0“Nurse bladder?” \u00a0Yes. \u00a0It was\u00a0very humbling to have someone invade your personal space in such a way. \u00a0My nurse was so great. \u00a0I felt appreciation for how important a nurse can be to a patient. Tony returned just in time to listen\u00a0to my discharge instructions. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0Sure enough, as\u00a0soon as I got home, I peed tons for the next several hours with no problem. \u00a0That was the worst part about surgery by far. P.S. I felt like I had the best husband for the rest of that week. \u00a0He didn’t leave my side, kept the dogs from crawling on my incisions, and fed me lots of ice cream. \u00a0He was wonderful.   Recovery was not terrible. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0My pants fit again after 1 week, but after 2 weeks they fit even better. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0One in my belly button, and two on either side of my belly button. \u00a0After about a week, the steri-strips fell off on their own. I’m now 3 weeks post op. \u00a0My incisions are healing, the bloating is almost gone, and I feel pretty much back to normal. \u00a0Woohoo- it’s over! I gained answers that have plagued my brain for almost two years. \u00a0I also feel\u00a0a 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journey-to-parenthood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_3759.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8oEBX-eV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":951,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}