2/10/10 – Wednesday

GOODBYE, ORGAN THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED! DON’T LET THE CERVIX HIT YOU IN THE TUBES (?) ON YOUR WAY OUT!

 

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We’ll be leaving for the hospital in a while. I’m slated to have surgery at 7:30, so have to be at the hospital at 5:30.

I’m glad that this is almost over, and already bored to death with the idea of having to spend the night in the hospital. I don’t wannnnnnna. I wanna go home!

I’m sure I’ll be home before I know it, right? Right.

The Kindle is charged and loaded with books, the iPod is charged and loaded with the second season of Gossip Girl, and the phone is charged and ready to Twitter/ blog.

What do you wanna bet I end up not touching the Kindle or iPod? (Better to have them with me and not need them than wish I’d brought them.)

Someone told Fred the other night that while recovering from surgery, I wouldn’t be getting out of bed for two weeks.

We both snickered, because laying in bed for two weeks? Me? I hardly think so. (To be fair, she probably didn’t mean that I’d be literally on my back in the bed for two weeks straight. But still.)

Then I realized that she didn’t know that this wasn’t my first surgery. This isn’t, in fact, my second or third or fourth surgery, even.

Surgeries I Have Had

1. Age 5ish: tonsils out! What I mostly remember from this is that another child – a boy – threatened to tell my parents on me if I didn’t brush my teeth…?

2. Age 15: Giant Cell Cystic Tumor (benign) removed from my right knee; bone removed from both hips to replace the bone that had been eaten away by the tumor. What I mostly remember about this surgery: the fucking drains, one on each hip. Every single time the surgeon came into my room, I asked when he was going to take the damn drains out. They were not physically painful, but their mere existence caused me great physical anguish. I had a cast on for most of the summer, and good christ do those things get itchy underneath. (Hmm, here’s some interesting information about Giant Cell Tumors: A female predominance exists, with a female-to-male ratio of 1.3-1.5:1. GCTs occur most commonly in the third decade of life; less than 5% of GCTs occur in patients who are skeletally immature. In the Mayo Clinic series, 84% of the GCTs occurred in patients older than 19 years. I was a medical oddity! Color me shocked.)

3. Age 20: C-Section. The spud was due on the 22nd. On the 25th, they did an ultrasound and estimated that she weighed 10 pounds, 4 ounces. They recommended a c-section, I agreed, and it was performed the next day. (She ended up weighing in at 10 pounds, 2 ounces. And she wasn’t even the heaviest baby in the nursery!) I developed some sort of infection (they were never able to figure out what or where was infected, but antibiotics took care of it in any case) and ended up staying in the hospital for a week.

4. Age 22ish: Endometriosis removed from my c-section scar. The gynecologist hypothesized that during the c-section, a bit of endometrial tissue was dropped into my incision and grew there. A few weeks later I developed an incisional scar, and the gynecologist numbed the area, cleaned out the infection, and closed it back up. While I was awake. I had forgotten about that ’til just now. It didn’t hurt (since it was numbed), but good god am I getting the oogies thinking about it.

5. Age 25ish: Wisdom teeth removed. (I don’t really consider this a “surgery”, but they did knock me out to do it, and there was a recovery period, so I’m counting it.) All I wanted to eat while I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth out was Spaghetti-Os. Which sound pretty damn good right now, believe me. The worst part about recovering from this was that just as I figured the healing was done, it felt like the bones in my face were shifting. It ached horribly. Gah.

6. Age 32: Had a tube put in my left ear. I don’t remember a damn thing about the surgery except that the next morning when I woke up (at home – it was just day surgery), I ached from head to toe.

7. Age 38: Weight Loss Surgery.

8. Age 38: Gallbladder removed.

9. Age 40: Lower body lift.

So this surgery I’m going in for tomorrow will be my 10th surgery. I expect that, recovery-wise, it’ll be a little worse than the gallbladder removal (because they did that laparascopically) and not nearly as bad or prolonged as the lower body lift. She didn’t mention drains, so hopefully I won’t have any of those (I didn’t with the gallbladder).

Let me put it this way: with the lower body lift, where they made an incision alllll the way around my body and stitched up my abdominal muscles and stuck drains all over the damn places, I was doing dishes (“doing dishes” – putting dishes in the dishwasher) and some light laundry. There’s no way that having a little bitty organ removed from my body is going to keep me bedridden for two weeks, is all I’m saying.

Not that I’m going to push it, either, don’t lecture me. I plan to watch plenty of bad TV and take it easy. I have 10 episodes of Hoarders saved for just this occasion, and although Fred never did get the Blu-Ray player set up to stream Netflix movies, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of stuff to keep me occupied. That’s what remote controls are for, after all!

 

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Dropping the Magnolias off yesterday morning went just fine. Drum howled most of the way to the adoption center, because he’s elected himself the mouthpiece for the litter, but once I was actually in the room and getting their cage prepared for them, they were so interested in what was going on that none of them thought to complain any further.

When it was time for me to leave, all except Clairee were already in the cage, checking out the toys I’d put in there. I picked up each of them and gave them a hug and kiss, and then put them back in the cage and shut the door.

When I leave kittens at the adoption center, I always watch them from outside the room, through the window, to see how they act. The Magnolias seemed a little confused, but not scared.

Except for M’Lynn, who went into the litter box to hide. Oh, M’Lynn. Break my heart, why don’t you?

But guess what? M’Lynn AND Truvy were adopted last night! Not together, but still. My little skittish girl won someone’s heart, which does not surprise me at all! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Drum, Ouiser and Clairee are adopted this weekend.

 

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Okay, I’m outta here.

Like I said yesterday, I’ll likely be Twittering, and maybe even posting here via my cell phone. I’ve changed the setup of the page so that the most recent 10 entries show up if you go to the main page. That probably means that the page will load slowly, sorry about that. Fred will try to remember to post something here letting y’all know I came through surgery just fine (feel free to email and harass him if he hasn’t posted anything by, say, 1:00 Central time.)

I don’t know when I’ll be back and posting regularly – I wouldn’t expect too much before Monday, if that. I don’t intend to spend much time in front of the computer, but who knows?

See ya when I see ya!

 

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Stinkerbelle sure does love her Tommy with a passion.

 

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Previously
2009: Usually, Fred’s Ross and I’m Chandler. Or Joey. Except that I’m kinda ditzy like Phoebe. I am an amalgam of Friends characters!
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: Unless maybe it’s a magic leotard and the source of all her powers?
2005: “Life’s too fucking short to read books that suck.”
2004: Damn you, DVR! I WANT to love you, but you’re toying with my emotions!
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: I’m not sure what effect, if any, it had on her.