Surgery Recovery?

During the next few days after my surgery things seemed to get a little easier.  Than again, I had my moments. After my chest tube was out and my oxygen was off, I think I freaked myself out or it could have been an anxiety attack. I felt that those two things were what was helping me breath and when they both came out I suddenly couldn’t breath. I could take short little breaths, but it was almost like I was suffocating. Mom got the nurse and that”s when I got a little snippy again. All I wanted to know is if it was normal to struggle breathing after a removal of a lobe and than after they took the tube and oxygen out? No one would answer that, all they could ask me was what my pain was on a scale of 1-10? That was another question that got super old. They rushed the x-ray tech up to my room and it came back ok. Eventually, I settled down. I also still had nausea every time I would get out of the bed in the morning. I had to take 4-6 walks daily up and down the hallway. I was the youngest one on the floor, I am sure all the older people there were looking at me and wondering what in the world I was doing up there. 

This was my very first hospital stay and I don’t care to do it again. The nurses would come in every two hours, give me my pain pills, which included 2 percocet and an oxycodone. Every morning I was there consisted of more pain pills, a shot in the belly, and a stool softener (sorry).  I finally could shower on the 3^rd day and let me tell you, my armpit hair was an unpleasant site. I made my mom go down and buy a razor. That first shower was a little challenging, but I wasn’t about to let anyone help me and it felt really good.

So my surgery was on Tuesday and I wasn’t released until Saturday. So much for me thinking I was going home on Thursday, but honestly I was glad, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. My mom stayed with me the entire time and was at my beck and call. Angie went home to take care of the boys, but I know it was tearing her apart to not be with me. The boys needed her too and to me that was more important. She came back up to take my mom and I home on Saturday and it was really awesome to see her again. I was ready to go home. 

One of my best friends from New Mexico flew that Saturday and that helped me to not think of what just happened. As soon as we arrived home, we quickly found out that there was a list of people bringing us meals everyday for the next three weeks. Again, unbelievable! Our friend Missy set that up for us and the people who took the time to make us home made meals are incredible. It was a HUGE help as Angie is the cook of the house. It was tricky for her to take care of me, run the boys to school and their sports, and work full time. She’s done well. She started giving me a hard time because it was like she was nursing again. She woke up every two hours to make sure I took the right pills and every 4 she had to bring me something to eat. Through out the day she would leave work to come check on me. I took a lot of attention. My mom came over almost every day. She did our yard work and took care of me during the day. Our good friend Kristin comes and cleans our house for us for hardly anything. People are truly amazing.

The first week after surgery, I didn’t feel too terrible. I was still on the same dose of pain pills, so I didn’t feel a whole lot. I did some work from home and entertained my buddy from New Mexico.

The second week after was not so good. I could only lay in one position and that was on my back. So, I woke up on a Saturday before Angie went to work. I tried to stand up out of bed and I couldn’t take a breath in. It felt like someone was stabbing me and the only thing I could do to breath is lay back down on my back. Angie called my mom and she rushed over. We were thinking we would have to go to the ER. Angie called up the chiropractor and he said he would come in and take a look at me. Turns out, I had this huge (two tennis balls) ball of swelling in the middle of my back. At this time, I tried to back off from my pain pills because I was running out, but I changed my mind and popped some more. I ended up choosing the Chiro instead of the ER. He helped tremendously.

By the end of the 2^nd week I was bound to stop taking pain pills. For 2 ½ weeks I was on drugs and I found out the hard way that my body was starting to become addicted. I had saved a few pills back for “just in case.” I can easily see how people become addicts because after dealing with headaches and depression, I would take a look at the pill and tell myself that if I took it than I could deal with this 4 hours later. Thankfully, I talked myself out of taking it. While my body was in withdrawal, I would start thinking about what was taking place and what had happened since July.  I became a person I have never known…..Sad, lonely, confused, and mad. I didn’t want to have cancer, I didn’t want to be sore, I didn’t want to be sick, and I certainly didn’t want to think about chemo.  I was scared! I was scared of the unknown. How long will I live, is there really no cancer in my liver or what if it is and it spreads, how will I react to chemo, will it make me sick, will I lose my hair, my eyelashes, what will it be like to sit there knowing that poison is running through my body? These were just the few questions that plagued my mind, kept me awake, and made my head pound. I finally started to cry.