A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Recovering...

You know how it is when you have a favorite pair of jeans (or shirt; or hat; or scarf; or husband) and the time comes to replace them? You can never find the comfort of the original again, right? That's kinda what I'm feeling about my blogs at the moment. I can't get a good comfortable feeling with my new blog. So, I'm back here! Yay!

Most people who have followed me on here have kept up with my up and down struggles (more downs than ups) every step of the way. I'm going to have to skip a huge chunk because tonight's story is *drum roll please* a butt story!! This happened today, so I'll tell it while it's fresh (teehee a fresh butt story) and then backtrack to how I got here in following posts. Everyone understand? Even if you understand only a little, I'm good with that since I'm on high doses of pain meds.

We need to slip back a few days to the day before Thanksgiving: Wed Nov. 25. This is the date of my latest surgery. A major, humdinger of a surgery. Since part of the operation was on my abdomen, I ended up in ICU for a couple days attached to continuous flowing pain medication. I also had a nifty morphine pump. And they were giving me Vicodin pills. Oh, there was also the Fentanyl injected into my IV anytime I was coherent enough to find the nurse call button and utter the word "pain".

Saturday afternoon I'm released from the hospital with a giant pain medicine prescription and three gross drain tubes coming out of my stomach area. These are the same type drains I had after my mastectomy. I hated them then, and you'll be pleased to note, I hate them maybe more now. Basically they keep your operated on site from swelling up by sucking out the liquid. At first it's a bright pink and as time goes on, the liquid is less pink and more just a nasty yellowish color which is almost where I was first thing this morning.

Now we're at this morning... Massive amounts of pain medications have been poured into my body because of a stomach surgery. More drugs than what they teach in medical billing classes. I've been told not to use my stomach muscles. Ask me how long it's been since I'd pooped? A week. I knew I was constipated. I knew constipated was probably bad.


I. Had. No. Idea. How. Bad.


The hospital never gave me anything to deal with the issue that was...errr.. ummm.. building up, well say. I was too out of it to even think about one day having to poop without using any stomach muscles at all. I set forth to combat the problem as best as I could - as soon as I thought about it...which was yesterday and this morning. Ahhh.. too little, too late. Or too much, too late.

I had to go! I tried to go! I sat for over an hour! AN HOUR, PEOPLE! My legs fell asleep. I thought about what my options were: call doctor's office and get suppository or worse an enema *shudders*. Nope, we must try everything else first. I mean, I know I'm not supposed to use my stomach muscles at all. I know they said no lifting, but this was an emergency! What's the worst that would happen?

The worst that could happen, it seems, is my nifty drains are now filling up with thick, dark red blood. Dr's office says sometimes this happens and it will correct its self. Watch carefully (duh) and if it doesn't improve after complete bed rest, I get to go back to the hospital.

On the upside... I'm poo free! Woo!



Sigh