Life without uterus
And lo, it is finished.
Surgery went well. According to my doctor, he "pulled out a very unhappy uterus." In addition to multiple fibroids including the big one, he saw extensive scarring that is highly suggestive of adenomyosis. His laparoscopy fellow also cleaned out a bunch of endo on my right ovary, which is where the last endometrioma was found. All told, the surgery took about three hours.
Then I ended up doing six hours in the recovery room, largely due to an episode of supraventricular tachycardia that had everyone extremely concerned for a while. Not good when you hear a nurse saying, "Oh, crap," while looking at your heart monitor, then calling in all the anesthesiologists who were part of the surgery and what felt like half the heart department.
That earned me an EKG and a lot of murmuring behind the little cubical curtains, as well as several people lifting me up and telling me to cough a lot. In the end, they thought it was just a reaction to being undermedicated for pain and finally gave me some more dilaudid. It's all a bit fuzzy now, but I think they had been giving me demerol, which made me roaring hot to the point where cool washcloths and a fan were brought out, and also really grouchy, but didn't actually do much for pain.
Then, contrary to my expectation of a pain pump and some really good drugs, the ward nurse attempted to treat my immediate post-op pain with one 5-mg oxycodone every four hours. I quickly had to disabuse her of that notion via tears and screaming and got more dilaudid. Things went better after that, but it was still a less than restful night, given that someone was coming in every two hours to check vitals, empty the foley catheter bag, give meds, make me use the incentive spirometer, etc. The nasal cannula for oxygen was annoying too.
I went home a little after lunchtime and promptly collapsed into bed. I just checked my labs from all the blood they drew during and after surgery, and I've made it down to 8.2 hemoglobin and 26% hematocrit, which is not hugely surprising given where I started out. I woke up with a second IV that had been capped off and blood in it, so I wonder if they gave me a transfusion while I was under. I assume I would've been told if they had, though, so maybe not.
Anyway, now I have six weeks off work to recover. My doc said I could go back after three if I was feeling up to it, but that strikes me as very optimistic. I asked him how long I should wait until I started skating again, and he said, "Well, there's a question I've never been asked. Uh, how many of those jumpy, twirly things do you do?" We agreed that six weeks was a good timeline there.
All right, back to attempting to work up an appetite...
This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/977361.html. It has
comments over there.
Surgery went well. According to my doctor, he "pulled out a very unhappy uterus." In addition to multiple fibroids including the big one, he saw extensive scarring that is highly suggestive of adenomyosis. His laparoscopy fellow also cleaned out a bunch of endo on my right ovary, which is where the last endometrioma was found. All told, the surgery took about three hours.
Then I ended up doing six hours in the recovery room, largely due to an episode of supraventricular tachycardia that had everyone extremely concerned for a while. Not good when you hear a nurse saying, "Oh, crap," while looking at your heart monitor, then calling in all the anesthesiologists who were part of the surgery and what felt like half the heart department.
That earned me an EKG and a lot of murmuring behind the little cubical curtains, as well as several people lifting me up and telling me to cough a lot. In the end, they thought it was just a reaction to being undermedicated for pain and finally gave me some more dilaudid. It's all a bit fuzzy now, but I think they had been giving me demerol, which made me roaring hot to the point where cool washcloths and a fan were brought out, and also really grouchy, but didn't actually do much for pain.
Then, contrary to my expectation of a pain pump and some really good drugs, the ward nurse attempted to treat my immediate post-op pain with one 5-mg oxycodone every four hours. I quickly had to disabuse her of that notion via tears and screaming and got more dilaudid. Things went better after that, but it was still a less than restful night, given that someone was coming in every two hours to check vitals, empty the foley catheter bag, give meds, make me use the incentive spirometer, etc. The nasal cannula for oxygen was annoying too.
I went home a little after lunchtime and promptly collapsed into bed. I just checked my labs from all the blood they drew during and after surgery, and I've made it down to 8.2 hemoglobin and 26% hematocrit, which is not hugely surprising given where I started out. I woke up with a second IV that had been capped off and blood in it, so I wonder if they gave me a transfusion while I was under. I assume I would've been told if they had, though, so maybe not.
Anyway, now I have six weeks off work to recover. My doc said I could go back after three if I was feeling up to it, but that strikes me as very optimistic. I asked him how long I should wait until I started skating again, and he said, "Well, there's a question I've never been asked. Uh, how many of those jumpy, twirly things do you do?" We agreed that six weeks was a good timeline there.
All right, back to attempting to work up an appetite...
This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/977361.html. It has
comments over there.