In fact, I had awoken already seated in the upright position. My first conscious moments had been spent wondering where in tarnation my underwear had gone. My hair flowed over my shoulders bereft of its surgery cap. My legs were wrapped in something akin to Spock's gravity boots from Star Trek VI. Can you tell it was my first surgery? I had also been left in my rocket ship bed in the corner of the massive recovery room, alone. Welp, I figured, I've already been gutted like a fish, if this is the beginning of the horror movie, the writing staff is a complete failure. What can you do, though, it's a rough economy.
I can't recall exactly what she said, it was probably something along the lines of, "hey, Hellen, the mystery surgery girl is awake...you made it! Thank God!" But, a kindly nurse soon appeared and wheeled my rocket to the elevator and up to my room, 260. Not much for originality, are you guys?
Over the next hour or so in my existence, I have only fuzzy memory pillows of what happened. I can remember laying in bed with tubes in almost every orifice—yeah, I discovered the catheter because I had noticed a tube taped to my leg. It had not been my first guess. My overly-creative and usually paranoid brain produced several bizarre scenarios in which I would've needed an upper thigh tube: to remove my upper thigh juices... military secrets... Russia... scuds... then, in a flash of sanity, I realized two things; first, the tube was for my urine which was NOT somehow re-directed through my leg, and; second, behold the power of Morphine.
"This is your pain button," said my new nurse, Jess, holding up a dark blue tube with a small white button at the end, "click it when you have pain. You can click it every ten minutes. Don't be afraid of it. Don't get behind on your morphine. It will suck." Oh boy, was she right. I really think the button should have had a smiley face sticker on it, would've made it much more descriptive and less threatening. With all these tubes and lights around, I felt like a Christmas Tree.
Another nurse entered 260. He had syringes. He had pokes, as I came to call them. I soon received three different shots, thankfully none were in the butt or stomach. The nursing staff exited, and I hit my happy button. I snoozed for a bit only to be awoken by a horrible beeping noise. I thought, perhaps this was the end, I had endured all of this trauma only to die in my holiday rocket bed. I pushed the red call button.
"Can I help you?" Said a friendly female voice.
"I'm beeping and I don't know why. What did I do??" I groggily dribbled over the words.
"I'll come check on it." She said.
Jess entered the room and took a look at my machine friends who pumped hydration and happiness into my blood, "Oh, looks like you bent the IV in your arm. Try to hold it straight."
The IV entrance had been obnoxiously placed in the crick of my right arm—the bendy elbow place. You try keeping that straight. Also, I am right-handed meaning that every text message I attempted resulted in beeping. (Eventually, one of my night nurses, Katie, decided we should move the IV to my left fore-arm. Thank you, Katie. I only set off the IV bendy-beep once after that).
The rest of the day was much the same; juices taken out through my nose and crotch, juices put back in through my IV. The pokes were liberally distributed, the happy button similarly employed. My parents had gone home in the late morning to sleep. Can't say I blamed them, because sleep was something I, too, had wanted to do all day. A few friends came to visit, but I was far too drugged for civil conversation. Courtney later informed me that I had regaled her with inappropriate stories while the maintenance guy was fixing the air duct. What? You thought oodles of morphine would somehow instill some shame into me? No, sir.
My family returned around dinner time, that is, dinner time for you solid food eaters. I'd been having dinner all day. My friend, Kate, returned from earlier and watched the Twins game with me and my mom. I drifted in and out of a morphine haze thankful I didn't have to get up to pee. I spent several minutes enduring pokes and volleying witticisms with the male nurse, Chris,
"I spilled a bottle of water on my macbook pro, that's why the keyboard is shoddy." I said.
"See, mom, she can't have anything nice. She's too clumsy." Said Chris.
"But, I put the computer in a bag of rice for three days and that part still works!" I shot back.
"Oh, yeah? Did you eat the rice?"
"For sure. It tasted like apples." I smiled as Chris shot an anti-biotic into my arm.
My brother joined us a little later and Kate went home. Brother-bear put the Sega game, "Aladdin," and the original Oregon Trail on my laptop for me. I felt like I could really get involved in the game; I had morphine, too. So, when little Amos broke his leg fording the river, we had a sense of solidarity; he sat in his conestoga and me in my rocket bed. I think I had the better deal. Soon mom and I began to snooze and brother-bear left. I tapped the happy button. Ah, time for a peaceful slumber, right, mom? Wrong. Let the beeps begin! Are you ready to beeeeeeep!?!
My fluid providing machine friends were very good at their jobs. One job informed the entire floor that they had run low on said fluids; be it morphine, saline or that other stuff. They also beeped if the nurse forgot to plug them back in and as a result were low on battery (thanks for that), they beeped when I would text... err move my freaking right arm. Simply put, once the sun set, a chorus of beeps cascaded from room 260.
Sometimes, though, and I'm not sure if it was the morphine induced haze, but I swear they would say things. One night, my parents had joined me and we had been swapping stories about our days—mine were the most interesting, of course—when i noticed that my morphine machine had a distinctness about his beeps.
"Dad, did you hear that? My machine just beeped his name!" I said.
"What do you mean? They all sound like beeps to me." He replied.
"No, no. They are all different. Listen..."
"Beep."
"Didn't that sound like, "chuuuck"?" I asked.
"Beep."
"Chuuuck."
"Beep."
"Chuck."
This went on for quite some time. The machines beeped other things, too, and not just names, but phrases. I digress. It probably was just the morphine coupled with my imagination.
The next morning, after a lovely evening of music and pokes, some good news arrived; my catheter could be removed. And it was. And it was awesome. I felt less like a Christmas Tree, moderately like a pin cushion and more and more like a girl. Jess and I took my machine friends for a little walk to the door and back. We set a goal to get out in the hallway by the end of the day. It happened.
In fact, after my jaunt past the doorframe, I decided to sit in my rocket bed and parse the TV channels. As I sat there, I realized that not much word had been spread at all before and during surgery. I know I had asked my family and every nurse I encountered to pray for me. Surgery went very, very well, in fact it lasted less than half the time they had predicted. But now, it was recovery time and prayer was just as important. I never asked how long I'd be staying in 260. I had heard four or five days. It didn't matter to me, I just wanted to get better. Bless my parents and friends for spreading the call to prayer.
I am amazed by the power of intercession and how far-reaching and rapidly it spreads. I should still be in the hospital as I type this.
Waldo, the surgeon, made his first visit after surgery, "Let me explain what happened: your large intestine moved and twisted itself. Then it wrapped around one of your fallopian tubes. There was some scar tissue on both forming a block, which I removed. Your intestines are fine, nothing is dead. I don't know why this even happened. It shouldn't happen again." You're absolutely right, doc, it shouldn't happen again.
Then he told me something you'd want a surgeon to say at 10 am two days after surgery, "everything looks good... you look good! How do you feel about taking the nose-tube out today? I think we can go ahead and do it right now." So, my nose-tube was removed the day after my catheter. Progress and power of prayer.
Later in the day, my gravity boots were removed and my red socks were changed to blue socks and I was deemed by Jess to be, "no longer a fall risk." This meant I could take myself for walks. And I did.
Later that evening, Courtney returned with her husband, Dan and our good friend Marie. Marie is one of the funniest people I know. Great for parties but a little too gut-splitting after having had surgery.
"Are we still going to make Wizard toilets at Ginger and Aaron's new years party?" I asked.
"What? How do you do that again?" Asked Marie.
"You put dry ice in the toilet and shut the door, and let it fill with magical smoke!" I said, excitedly.
"Yeah! Come to think of it, I can bring you some dry ice tomorrow. You can tell the nurses that you finally pooped... all those ice chips you ate decided to become one large friend!"
As painful as the next few minutes of holding my stitches with a pillow were, I really think all of the laughter helped. It is nice to get cards, like the Hospital Fashion Show one Marie gave me, with this written inside,"get your sexy ass outa bed so we can find some hot men!"
Flowers are beautiful gifts, too (thanks, Mamma Roselle). It's even better to have visitors. Time is important to people and for my friends to have taken a little time to spend with an incapacitated me, really re-enforced the human need for community and friendship.
During their visit, I had been drinking my dinner: coffee.
* Pause now. Note how fitting that the first non-saline substance to be consumed was coffee. End Pause. * Marie told me that coffee would do my bowls good since the morphine was just slowing them down. You see, pooping was one of the conditions of my departure. We chatted and laughed for a bit more and suddenly at about 8:35 pm, I had that feeling, that awesome tingly feeling; I had to poop.
Everyone quickly helped me out of bed and walked me and my machine friends to the bathroom.
"Do you want us to leave?" Asked Courtney.
"No, no, stay. You can applaud me when it happens and run through the halls, tell all of the nurses and grab my discharge papers!" I said anxious to get on the throne of contentment.
I'll spare you the next minute or so, but I did poop, and I did shout about it. When I flushed, my friends clapped. What I didn't realize, is that my mom had also joined the tribe. I opened the bathroom door and found 4 shinning smiling faces that beamed with pride in my digestive abilities. My friends soon left and mom and I prepared for another symphony of farts, beeps and pokes.
From there, the situation grew from improved into bloomin' miraculous. I cannot imagine how pitiful and weak I must've looked right after surgery, and I cannot explain the looks of wonder on the staff faces a mere two days later as I strolled solo down the hallway, sporting my new blue socks, sans machine friends. After having my IV removed and starting oral pain meds (percocet > morphine), I even ate a grilled cheese sandwich!
My surgeon seemed the most emphatic about my incredible recovery, "you look good. We can send you home this afternoon." It was the way he said it. There was a hint of disbelief in the usual mono-tone and his eyes twinkled behind the Waldo glasses.
At 5 a.m. Tuesday, August 21st, I was gutted like a fish in an emergency Exploratory Laparotomy. At 4 p.m. Thursday, August 23rd, I was officially discharged and walked out of the hospital.
Mr. Doctor, you diagnosed, sliced, re-arranged and stitched, for that I am unequivocally grateful. Nothing compares, however, to the good Lord's healing touch.
