SO THANKFUL

It’s 1 am and I’m laying here with a lot of pain in my stomach but I am so happy and thankful that both surgeries went off without a hitch. I figured while it’s still fresh in my mind I would describe the experience.

First, let me tell you that IV Benadryl takes you right to crazy town. I was encouraged by several people to take a dose to help me sleep better the night before surgery.  About five minutes after taking it, I lost my ability to speak coherently and began hallucinating. I am not kidding. It was full on hallucination. Let me also tell you that when your nurse tells you that colace, a stool softener, doesn’t make you have to go to the bathroom for the next 4 hours, she is lying. I won’t soon forget trying to negotiate my way from my bed to the bathroom at 2 am attached to an IV and hallucinating like crazy.

My nurse Stacy, woke me up at 6:30 am and told me to wipe my entire body down with these wipes that remove normal skin bacteria and then put on a gown. They then wheeled me down to pre-op where they actually put me in a closed room with a door rather than the little stalls the other patients had. For the next hour, I was visited by a number of people who would be part of mine and Piper’s surgical teams. I took some oral Valium and then had a shot of lovonox which is a blood thinner. After that, I was given a dose of some kind of anesthetic through my IV. That’s when I started to drift off a little bit. I wasn’t asleep, but just kind of entering lalaland.

Once everyone had visited and gotten me to sign their consent forms, I was wheeled over to an operating room. I transferred from the bed to an OR table and positioned accordingly. The last thing I remember is having the mask put over my face and told to breathe deeply. Then I was out.

The next thing I remember is a hazy and blurry ride out of the OR to the PACU for a recovery period. It took a little bit for the initial total confusion to subside whereafter I was just sort of in the post-anesthetic fog. I was visited by all of my family and a few friends along with the doctors. It was really great to see everybody. Shortly after that I was rolled up to my room where I continued to receive visits and updates about Piper. I was thrilled to learn that her new kidney was already working great even while surgery progressed.

For the rest of the day and evening, I was in and out of consciousness and experiencing pretty big ebbs and flows of pain. At some points it was around 4-5 on a scale of 10 and other times it was around 9-10. It wasn’t until they realized that i had not been put on a continuous small dose flow of dilauded and fixed that problem that the pain stayed consistently below 7.

It’s now 5:15 (I fell asleep writing earlier) and they’ve been in to check on me pretty consistently all night. When I sleep, it’s a very deep sleep but I come out of it at the slightest noise. I guess that’s having three kids for you. I’ve still got some pretty good stomach pain but I can’t complain. The care has been great. They just took some blood but told me that earlier blood work came back great. They also told me that Piper is doing so well with her new kidney and other than some discomfort that they’re treating with pain medication, she is doing perfectly.  Dr. Kaiser told me we both continue to set records around here!

Anyway, there you have it. I’m sure I will have more to add later, but that’s all I have for now. Thanks for all the support and the comments, which I love reading. Keep them coming.

Love, Chris

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