Victo-Weenie
I may or may not have been ledge talking the night before my hernia surgery, however, just because I am curled up in a ball frightened the night before something scary doesn’t mean I won’t do it. It just means I’m cocooned up seeking comfort. And, usually, being a kitty-type human.. It’s in a blankie.
I went to sleep that night and you know what? Yes, I was absolutely mortified about going to the hospital and staying there. I didn’t wanna go. Why would I wanna go? No good ever comes out of going to the hospital for me. The good stuff doesn’t happen when you go to the hospital, the good stuff happens when you leave the hospital. So that’s what I did. I made a plan for leaving the hospital. But first I had to get there and getting there means I had to get up around 10AM. That’s not a problem for me because I never sleep in that late. I set my usual alarm, and when Master Pravus woke me out of a dead sleep at around quarter of nine I asked why on earth he was waking me and what was going on.
“Kitty, I actually do need to wake you up,” he said sounding genuinely sad.
“What? Why? Did we miss an alarm? Oh my gawd–“
“Kitty! They moved your surgery and you’re an hour and a half late for check-in now.”
“jhfeiurhfbkjsdnf!”
“I know. Just get up. They said not to rush in but to get in as quickly as possible.”
I was completely furious because I spent the previous day making sure everything was all set for Dongalor, making sure the packing was done, that Master Pravus had his shakes, everything was ready. We confirmed time yesterday. WHY?! ::Sigh:: Well, it wouldn’t matter why. What would matter, ultimately, was that we had to get going and hope we wouldn’t get bumped or something. Here’s the highlights (and lowlights).
I had a significant hernia. The reason it was such a problem is because if I didn’t have someone who knew what they were doing to fix it ahead of time take care of it, then the consequences would most likely not go in my favor (to put it lightly) if I had an emergency. And with a hernia of that size (and growing) it was a matter of time before it became an emergency, So I needed to go, and I needed to do this. It’s just that I’d already had it fixed up twice, and for various reasons that never worked out for me. A few of the reasons seemed obvious in retrospect. But Captain Hindsight works long, long hours and we’re here now, trying to move forward instead of staying pinned in the past.
Anyway, I did arrive at the hospital. And I will say that the absolute worst part of it all happened in the beginning. I’m currently speaking with Patient Relations over this because it never should have happened and I am completely ripshit over it. We got checked in and Master Pravus and me got seated while we waited for them to call my name. The nurse came out and she immediately grabbed my wheelchair handles and started pushing me. She said Master Pravus couldn’t come with me. I told her to please stop pushing me, he’s my escort, not a visitor and we have special permission for him to come with me. Instead of listening, she kept pushing the chair.
“I’ll get him in five minutes!” she said, “It’ll be very quick.”
“No,” I said firmly, louder, “Every time this happens, no one comes back for him. I have a complicated medical history and I need help. Please stop pushing my chair. I need help with my special binder, and I need my escort.”
“I will be dressing you today.”
“I”m not comfortable with that at all. I need my escort. He has special permission, and this isn’t right.”
I sat in silence, and when we got to the room I was supposed to get out of my chair. She stopped my chair, got me real close to the bed and grabbed my bicep as if she was going to help me transfer but I stayed firmly planted.
“C’mon. Gotta get you ready,” she said smiling.
“I’ll get out of the chair when you get my escort,” I said in a firm, but not angry voice. I tried to stand my ground but I refused to let them treat me this way. Absolutely not. She did relent and let me stay in the chair. She handed me a list of allergies and medications and things and said “Are these correct?” And I told her that I needed my escort because he carries the list of my allergies and medications. >:) (What the actual fuck though? We called ahead and everything.)
It took awhile but eventually she allowed Master Pravus back where I was, and at that point she handed him the med list and allergy list. And she started asking him things like “So will you be going home or here for her surgery?”
“I’ll be here all week.”
“We’ll see,” she said. (What the actual FUCK?”)
So, a nurse came to meet with me before they took me back, it was an O.R. nurse. And she was really nice. And our bitch intake nurse was still trying to be a BITCH. “So when you return tomorrow…” she started up. And I cut across her with the new nurse there.
“Actually, as I said, he will be staying overnight. We got permission both from my doctor and the Patient Relations department weeks in advance. He is my escort. And I need him here for help with my medical devices and with my medical history. The O.R. nurse was really nice about it, and it wasn’t until that point that the BITCH nurse seemed to soften up a bit and go “Oh, why didn’t you say so?”
hruiehfjkdsnfiuertheuroijn. I nearly puked on the spot. I absolutely hate when people abuse their power like that and in the moment there’s not much you can do about it.
The surgery itself was uneventful. I remember waking up in the PACU and nothing they tried was getting my pain under control. :/ So they put some more medicine in my feeding tube, and that didn’t work either. And then just as they were going to give up trying, another nurse gave me a liittle extra medicine in my IV and that was sort of the thing that fixed my pain and made it bearable. Not zero, but bearable. So that was good.
They had to transfer me via ambulance to another building because the building wasn’t connected, but Master Pravus was somewhat excitable about that because he’d never ridden in an ambulance before. Ha! I’ve had enough ambulance rides that the novelty has somewhat worn off for me, but at least I didn’t need medical attention in the ambulance. So really it was just a little ride. Heh.
When we got to my room everyone was really nice. I mean, the nurse I had that first day was nice, and she was good about staying on top of my pain etc. But the hospitalist for our floor was kind of a dingbat. So that was. Annoying. After the first night they wanted me to get up out of bed and stuff. I don’t have a problem moving around. I like moving around. The problem is that at that point my pain wasn’t controlled with the current regimen I was on. And so I didn’t want to get up. They agreed to switch some things up for me, and I did get out of bed to walk around. I had a hell of a time with it though, and I needed my breakthrough pain meds just to get back to my bed. Nice.
Welp. They did agree to increase my pain regimen, but that night. The second night? The overnight nurses only ever gave me tylenol despite there being better things available to me. I was just miserable. I determined to leave on the third day.
The third day came around, and I had a talk with my doctor and explained that they weren’t even giving me the medications as prescribed and that I was going to need to get to the bathroom, and shower, and move around in the house. Of course I heard all sorts of random things like “We can’t get your pain to zero, you know.” And: “Your pain will improve every single day.” Ok. But if I can’t get to the bathroom then my pain isn’t going to improve at all, you freaking turkeyfishes. So. That was that. They increased my pain regimen a litttle bit more, and finally I was able to leave the hospital. In a lot of pain and having a fuck of a time just driving home. But still. Home:
How are things going? Well. I dunno. Normally I show a tummy picture but I don’t want to this time because it’s in a part of my tummy that I don’t love. I will say that I have 14 staples, and they seem to be doing OK. In my experience, staples have done much better for me than stitches or glue and they are much easier to remove. But then again, everyone has different opinions on their closures. Some people like the glue. And you know? I wouldn’t mind it if it wasn’t so itchy-making. Bleh.
I’m just getting to the point (five days out) that I’m starting to walk around a little bit. Nothing too crazy. Walking around and sitting up and moving at all is kind of a big deal for me. I’m doing a lot of lay-down time right now. It’s taken me a few days to write this because honestly I can only sit up a little bit at a time to do it. So I have a couple of blog posts coming that are all in chronological order, but they’re a little less timely than I’d like.
Here’s where I am. Trying to heal and doing it kind of slowly.