Day 2 of Surgery Recovery!

As promised, I'll dedicate this post to discussing day 2.... beware.. it will not be all that uplifting! :)

Day two started out okay, except for the fact that I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, due to anxiety.. and when you aren't able to fall asleep, you hear every beeping machine in the hospital!!!! (Yeah, not that much fun).. but to start out properly, the morning started good, felt happy with the night nursing team, happy with my hospital experience thus far.

Then the night nurse comes and tells me that before she goes off shift, she needs to unhook my morfine drip and get me started on Liquid Vicodin (not sure it's real name). This was also the point where she removed all bandages, and I got to see the 6 stapled areas on my gut!! Not very exciting... just being honest! I'm still very euphoric, so of course this is a good step to me! :)

Wrong!! That liquid vicodin was the worst medicine I've ever taken in my life... I can't explain it any other way than - I freaked out! (there is no way to discribe it properly, so I won't even try) I apologize to any of you who came to visit me on this day, I promise, I was not myself at all! I kept trying to call a nurse to let them know what was going on, but they were all in the midst of shift change.. the PCA was the only one that would come and ask me what I needed, and was only able to tell me that the nurse would be in shortly, but she was getting her run-down from the night nurse right now. (Ohmygosh!) So needless to say by the time the next hour had hit, I was completely a mess, still no nurse, and this angel from heaven.. her name is Denise... (she is the bariatric coordinator, I had taken a tour with her two days before)... she said she was walking by and saw my light (for help) was on and hadn't been addressed and was there anything she could do! I told her YES, I needed to use the restroom, and anyone that has had surgery will know that 1 day post surgery, it's not easy to do anything on your own.. much less when you have to unplug and drag and IV machine everywhere with you! She got me fixed in that area.. and then could tell that I wasn't okay. I started crying and telling her what was going on, and she quickly hooked my morfine back up and gave me back my "button"... and said she would get to the bottom of this! Like I said.. she's an angel!

After that, they finally came in to see what had happened, we all agreed I had a severe reaction to Liquid Vicodin and that I should from that point on put it on my list of allergies! LOL! Uh... consider it done!! Then they started trying to figure out what to do, since I couldn't have my morfine, I needed to be weaned off of that! Well.. considering that had calmed down some of my reaction, I wasn't giving that up without a fight. Needless to say within a couple of hours, they tried Darvocet (in pill form.... little stomach, big pill... not a good combo... but I got through it) and I lost the morfine fight... they have the key.. I don't.. easy to see which direction that was going! No, I didn't get beligerant, but now is a good time to humbly admit, I cried alot this day!

Then I went the day trying to adjust to Darvocet, which didn't come from the pit of HELL like the other medication - we'll just call the other one Liquid Hell.. for the sake of clarity! But it was still a little rough, very sluggish, very drowsy, very narcotic!! (Didn't see that coming, huh?) So the rest of the day I was just trying to get over the morning experience, and try to do whatever I could do to recover the amount that I should for that day!

Needless to say, on this day, I must admit, I was having regrets! I share this because this is a blog of the journey, and I must be truthful, not only for myself, but to those following me that might wish to glean from my experience! I wondered what I was ever thinking! A friend of mine sent me a well timed text right about then and told me that "this is why it's a joke when they say that this surgery is the easy way out!" .... Touche'!!

I truly believe that I did ALOT of research, but I won't lie, at this point I felt like I was completely naieve and didn't not know at ALL how to prepare myself for this proceedure!!

It did get better the next day though... more on that next post!

Thanks to those who visited me on this day:
Brian, Mom and Dad, Pastor and Linda Hopper, Heather Cox, Monica Esparza, Cecilia Morgan - if I missed you and you are reading this... please remind me so that I can add you... but please don't blame me.. blame the Liquid Hell.... I was lucky to even know there was people in my room this day!

Your kindness in the midst of my meltdowns was greatly appreciated!!

***I have to put this in here.. if you are reading this and are a friend of mine and didnt visit in the hospital... don't feel bad at all! That's not my point of putting a list of those who did.. once again... blogging a journey.. so I need to put in details as long as they are prudent. :) I was a bit of a mess, so all of your help and support these next few days and months will be just what the doctor ordered!! :) Love to you all!