Saturday, December 13, 2008

Surgery

All the way down to the hospital for surgery I felt every bump in the road and knew it was coming just in time. I was ready to go, and in spite of trying to avoid doctors whenever possible, I knew I needed to go and was happy to finally have some resolution to all the crap that had been building up.

Best thing ever: my surgical team was all women. My med student, all the surgeons, the anaesthesiologist, all the nurses....except one guy, who snuck into the room after I was already under the influence of sedatives. The last thing I remember was pointing at him and asking what he was doing there since he was a man. He said he was the anaesthesiologist's assistant and promised to stand at the back.

Apparently surgery was quite grueling and I'm glad I slept through all the excitement. Scott said that he didn't see me again till 7:30 that night, an absence of far more hours than anticipated. I had to have a transfusion of 4 pints of whole blood, a bunch of plasma and some platelets and Dr. O said it was the grossest thing she'd ever seen inside my gut (I have known her a long time). The fibroid had basically eaten away my uterus from inside the lining, taking over its blood supply and then not long before surgery it burst, throwing necrotic, dead tissue throughout my abdomen area. It also affected my appendix, which they removed. They had to leave part of my uterus and my cervix, as I was losing too much blood to continue and surgery was getting quite dangerous, but they were able to save two healthy-appearing ovaries, and that is great news. During surgery they checked and the fibroid was not cancerous, so much more good news! It seemed like we were on the way, even though I was pretty touch and go for a while. I was drugged up, so no issues for me, but I feel horrible that Scott had to deal with all of this by himself. He did have good support from family, but I hate that he had to go through it while I was lolling around in bed. I spent the night on the step-down floor (between ICU and regular care) then another three nights after that in a regular room with excellent care the whole time. Coming home I was in much better shape than anticipated and even the stairs at home were never too much to bear. Of course Scott was pampering me, which I TRIED not to take too much advantage of....

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