My Surgery in a nutshell.

So I have been reading my past posts, and I am sooooo glad that I wrote all that I did leading up to the surgery. God I was such a baby about the little procedures before the surgery. Crying about a few needles and stuff...haha. The surgery itself is something I thought I would NEVER, EVER do, and here I am almost 7 months out of having it done. It is still so SURREAL. And I just posted the pictures of my back before and after the surgery and YUCK! The before ones are gross...sorry but they are lol. And another note...my waistline is not that small anymore (the one of my back one month post-op)...as you can imagine, you do lose weight during an ordeal like this. I lost weight before the surgery because of nerves, I couldn't eat. Then during the hospital stay, uhh, eating is not like the biggest thing on your agenda. Or it wasn't mine. When I got home, I didn't have much of an appetite, and that was because of the pain meds. Well the pain meds (the heavy, GOOD ones anyways lol) stopped, and I slowly put on weight. I am still smaller than I was a year ago, so thats good I guess. I wish my waistline were still that small though haha.

So here is a little synopsis of my surgery.

I will try and keep this as brief as I can lol.

I went in on January 15, at 5:30 AM, given the sedation stuff and then I woke up and the surgery was done...I was in surgery for 8 hours, and I woke up in ICU screaming from the pain. The anesthesiologist woke me from my sedation and was explaining to me about the pain pump that I could use. I can't explain the pain, as you can imagine, it was horrific. I was cussing at the nurses and they finally got the meds going and I was somewhat ok. On a sidenote, I believe that I was screaming because I was mainly scared to death. The last thing I remembered was lying in the little room talking to my family and the anesthesiolgist, and BOOM! There I was in a different room, stiff, groggy, in pain, with what seemed like thousands of nurses swarming around me, prepping me for my stay in ICU, I couldn't feel my legs it seemed, I mean, it was just horrifying to wake up in that state, you know? So yes, I was hurting immensely, but I think it had a lot to do with the atmosphere too...it was not fun at all.

The next day, they had me up and walking! I had been walking with my body off balance and crooked for 16 years, and then all of a sudden I need to walk with a straight spine and all my organs put back into place lol. It was very weird. I felt top heavy, like you feel heavy because of all the instrumentation inside. Or at least I did.

So I spent 7 days in the hospital, walking up and down the halls and being bugged every hour with nurses bringing me meds, or checking my BP or the respiratory therapists making me do the breathing thing. I didn't get a full nights sleep at all, not that I could anyways, I was in so much pain that I had to wake up every 3 hours to take pain medication.

On the 7th day, I was packed up and ready to go home, but a dreaded chest x-ray showed that I had fluid in my lungs and I had to go have a chest tube inserted. THAT was VERY painful. And added another 4 glorious days to my visit.

So I was in the hospital for a total of 11 days. I flew home, which was awful since I was in so much pain...I recovered at my grandma's house. She took care of my girls, got them to school, did homework, cooked, bath times, the whole nine...all while taking care of me too. Of course my granddad was there to help too. My husband was working 7 on and 7 off, so he helped when he could.

I didn't get a lot of visitors, I guess people got busy, forgot, whatever...I don't know. It was VERY hard laying in bed, having someone do everything else for me and my kids. I always did everything for everyone and sacrificing that was hard, and I cried a lot. My kids were afraid to touch me, scared they'd hurt me, and I was desperate to just hold and hug them. Kaci's class made me Get Well cards and that spruced my attitude up a little I got up and walked everyday and tried to get more independent each day.

I had to wear a brace any time that I was up and walking around. I started to drive about 4 weeks after the surgery, and that was weird because I couldn't move my neck to look around like I used to could. I'd take a shower and would be exhausted, I had a lot of days of thinking, "When am I gonna get better??" It was very very hard. But each day brought on a little more recovery.

I was able to actually go home to my house in March, my husband did EVERYTHING, which was big time because he never did anything before...we had major marital discord in the months leading up to the surgery and then the actual surgery like opened his eyes, and it changed my husband and I couldn't be happier.

Now...I am able to clean, cook, buy groceries, drive, walk, ANYTHING, without PAIN. But if I push myself too far, I will experience pain, but its nothing like it was before. I sleep better, I look better, my clothes look better because I don't have the rib hump anymore. I breathe better, except that during the surgery, they cut 4 inches off of 4 of my ribs to resection them (to remove the rib hump) and so if you've ever had a broken rib, you'll know what I am talking about. When I sneeze, inhale deeply, cough, it hurts in my ribs where they are still healing. Other than that...I am doing GREAT

I even took on a Nanny position for the summer, watching a total of 6 kids including mine, 3 days a week...I guess I was glutton for punishment haha. Nahh its really not that bad. Starting in August, when my Nanny job is over, I will start working at Crescent Parks Mothers Day Out. So there is my story...there is a lot more to it, and I tried to make it short and sweet, but I couldn't lol...sorry its so long!

Anyways, I will be trying to write more now that I am in the real world again, having the internet again haha :]

G,night...