Surgery Day

I awoke the morning of my surgery nervous with a lump in my throat and a runny nose to boot. I had packed a large backpack the night before with all the books, music, and bed-ridden entertainment I could stuff into it. I dumped it onto the seat of my dad's truck and off we went. As we drove there, I flashed back to all the feelings I had felt as a child on the way to the hospital. I was scared of what was to come as I pressed my head against the cool glass window as the city quickly whirred past us on the Tobin Bridge. After taking many deep breaths in effort to calm myself down, we arrived at Mass General Hospital for my biggest surgery yet.

When we got to the waiting room I tried to remind myself that I would be knocked out. That I wouldn't feel anything, wouldn't even know that it happened. I would just wake up and everything would be completely fine. But there were some immediate interactions with doctors and anesthesiologist that made me quite a bit on edge.
Here's how my initial conversation with my medical professionals went:

-Hello, Brittany? my anesthesiologist stated in question like form. How are you doing today?
-Yes, Hi. I'm okay. A little nervous, I replied.
-You'll be fine. You're here for a small bowel resection? (Again with the question statement.)
-Yes.
-Okay. It looks like we're going to have to give you an epidural today, because the surgeon is going to be cutting a vertical line from your belly button to your lower abdomen. It will be about a six inch incision.
-What? My doctor said it should only be two inches tops.
-No, from what I see here, you're going to have a larger scar and need more than local anesthesia.
-Uh. Okay.
-Oh, and after your surgery, you may be vomiting for a few days and at least experiencing a lot of nausea.
Great. My biggest fears come to life...
-Is it possible that I won't throw up?
-It's not likely. Your stomach and intestines are going to be healing themselves and it is a huge shock to your system. Your going to be learning how to digest all over again.

At this point, he left the room for a while (in order to get the epidural I assume) as I discreetly panicked to my mom about getting an epidural. She told me they are not so bad and not to worry. As she tried to talk me down, he returned with the epidural.
-Okay, now lean forward, he said as he guided me forward.
Just barely before he could get the needle into my spine, my surgeon showed up.
-What are you doing? he asked. The anesthesiologist told him that I was getting an epidural due to the extensive incision that was going to be made during surgery.
-She doesn't need that! he replied. She is only going to have a 3-4cm long incision at most.
-Oh. Okay, I'm sorry! he said.
At this point I was unamused. All I could wonder was, How the hell are these two men not on the same page about my surgery right now? How could two people have such drastically different ideas of what was about to happen to my body while I lay unconscious under the knife? Aren't you guys supposed to be on the same goddamn team!?

Needless to say, if I wasn't already terrified before, I was terrified now. Long story short, somehow, between the two of them, they knocked me out efficiently enough so that I didn't wake up during surgery--thank god.

I woke up dreamy-eyed, unaware that the surgery had even happened and drugged up to high heaven. They gave me a morphine drip with a delightful little button that allowed me to control my dosage. It certainly helped with the pain, but it caused my conversation skills to dwindle to that of a two-year-old. I also fell asleep periodically while people talked to me, but I figured they would understand and didn't feel too guilty. While I did feel mostly pain-free, I was extremely nauseous. They wouldn't let me have even a drop of water for a few days because even that could disrupt the healing process and cause a violent reaction. But eventually I had to try something. I had a very small sip of water and a bite of applesauce but that was all I could muster. And a few hours later, I felt like I could barely hold anything down. I called my nurse and said I was feeling really sick and realized that under my surgical dressings, my stomach had ballooned to twice its size. She said it was probably bile and that she could get my stomach pumped by putting an NG tube through my nose. I quickly suggested that we try attaching a tube with a bag to my G-Tube, because why not? It was there almost exclusively because I didn't want to put anything up my nose ever again. So the nurse brought in a connecting tube and an empty liter-sized bag and I attached myself to it. Within a second of opening the clamp, bright green bile rushed through the tube and into the empty bag. Quickly, the bag began to expand with this almost Kool-Aid green liquid until it was completely full and I needed to attach another one. The second bag only filled up a third of the way, but the color of that bile still haunts me. I couldn't eat or drink anything green for months because it brought back too many memories of what I now know is inside of me. It was a huge relief to release all that distended pressure from my belly, but damn if that wasn't gross.

To be continued...

Preparing for Surgery

A few days later I got a call with the results from that horrible test. My doctor concluded that I had a stricture in my small intestine caused by scar tissue around the area. The scar tissue was a result of years and years of Crohn's Disease recurring at the same site.

You're going to need to have surgery, my doctor informed me.
Yeah I figured, I said.
Honestly, I don't know why you didn't have this done years ago.
Yeah. Me neither...

At least by this point, I was confident that my doctor knew his stuff. I didn't feel like I was being blamed for my disease anymore and that the symptoms I had been describing for what seemed like forever were not all just in my head. I felt like I finally had an ally in the medical system. After I hung up the phone, I told my Mom and Dad that I would in fact need surgery. I think they expected it and were optimistic that it would be good for me in the long run. (Spoiler alert: it was.) When I met with my GI doc, he gave me a few surgeons to choose from complete with photo, bio, and area of expertise. I, being the nervous nelly that I am, picked the head of surgery in Gastroenterology and Endocrinology. He seems like a safe bet, I thought to myself. So I made an appointment with him and just like that, I had set a date: September 17th, 2009. I chose September because I was going to be a bridesmaid in July and I was told that the recovery time for a surgery like this was between two to three months. Better stay on the safe side. I'm not going to get into it, but a lot of bummer-worthy personal life stuff happened during that summer and by the time surgery season had approached I needed a vacation, so I went out to Star Island on the Isles of Shoals to unwind for a few days. While I was there, I got a voicemail from my surgeon telling me something had come up and he had to postpone my surgery for another week. I was a little pissed at first, because I had done all this mental preparation and had really come to terms with being incapacitated for the next two or three months. But who am I kidding, I was also totally psyched to have one more week of freedom, and by this point I was actually feeling great so I wanted to live it up as much as I could. (And by live it up I mean I went to a lot of bookstores and bought a bunch of books for my recovery that I never actually read. This kind of stuff excites me, clearly I am a bit of an introvert.)
So that extra week came and went quicker than I could have every imagined and before I knew it, it was the night before my surgery. Now, I say I was "mentally prepared", but what I mean is that I was still very much freaking out that I would a.) die on the operating table b.) wake up during surgery c.) throw up uncontrollably after surgery d.) lose a scary amount of weight from my 97 pound body immediately after and e.) sneeze every ten minutes after surgery and bust a stitch because my allergies had really kicked it up that year. I just decided to try not to worry so much and remember that I would be knocked out for all the painful stuff and that when I woke up, I would be on all kinds of wonderful drugs that would make everything okay.  And boy, did they ever make things feel pretty okay for a while. I got into bed and relished in the comfort of it before my last night before surgery. The next would be one to remember.

Tune in next time for: Surgery Day

My Reintroduction to This Blog

So, I realize that it has been a terribly long time since I have posted anything to this blog--9ish months to be exact--but I think I am ready to get back on the blogging wagon again. (Or is is off the wagon?) Anyway, the past nine months have been much of the same that I had written about previously in terms of the psychological preoccupation with being underweight and feeling like I look sickly. But I am starting to focus less and less on that because I have generally been feeling good. Really good for me actually. I work full time with two-year-olds now and I like to believe that they have made my immune system some kind of super-human germ fighting machine. So that's good. Thanks kiddos. I've also had to clean up throw up once or twice/witness it occur so the fear of vomit  has become kind of a dull worry instead of an all-encompassing life obsession. You kind of start to lose your gag reflex in this field, I must say that.

Also in the last year, my college boyfriend passed away on my birthday. That was extremely hard. A lot of emotions arise when you lose someone you were once so close to. It has been strange to deal with, because we hadn't been together for years and hadn't really communicated much since we broke up either, but a whole lot of confusing feelings kept coming to the surface. This whole whirlwind of grief had so many different feelings and responses: loss; denial; guilt; remorse; depression; withdrawal; loss of appetite; feeling like you don't have a single thought in your whole head, but then inevitably having too many thoughts to even begin to process at one time; numbness; blank wall staring; not sleeping; sleeping all day; fear; fearlessness; feeling connected; and always wondering if you could have said or done something differently. It is an ongoing process, but I am handling it reasonably well (for me anyway). I am typically so hyper-focused on sickness and death that it is almost paralyzing, but I almost feel reassured that he is alright in some way. Like, since he let himself pass on into whatever lies ahead on the other side, there is somehow nothing really to fear in life. It really helps put mundane worries and life's little problems into perspective. Our last conversation actually happened because of this blog. He had read it and wrote me a really heartfelt message on facebook that, in retrospect, feels especially meaningful. I think part of me was not ready to come back to this blog for some reason because of that. I don't know how that makes any sense, but I'm sure I'll hyper analyze it until it does.

So anyway, I will try to keep up with this as much as I can, and at least be posting more than once every nine months. Sorry to be such a downer the first time back by the way (not that most of my posts are not at least kind of a bummer). All things considered, this was probably the biggest life-shaking events to happen in my life during my pseudo-absence so I figured I should write about it. It really affected every part of my life for a few months--including my health--but things are better now. I am finding more peace and have done more soul searching in the last few months than ever before. I'm finding that with loss can come growth and healing, which is a hard concept to grasp at first blush. But experiencing something like this really does make you appreciate all the people and relationships in your life that much more. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch a basketball game with one of those special people now :) Goodnight!