Week 1, Day 3

I’m feeling a little less like all of my internal organs were removed, put in a cocktail shaker, vigorously tumbled, and put back into me without my knowledge. The first 48 hours were pretty brutal. I had to stay in bed, with only positional adjustments, up through today. That felt a lot like getting beaten with a baseball bat and told to lie down so the pain could really set in.

My JP Drains are as awful as I’ve read they were. I rolled over on them yesterday and my physical therapist almost completely yanked my two left drains out of me when trying to toss my menagerie of blankets off of me. She failed to appreciate that those “pesky blankets” were actually my drains she kept pulling on and trying to throw over the opposite the edge of the bed. It was horrific and both times I had a ton of pain both radiating from and almost down into my incisions.  I have a pain medication push button that I hit every time I see a doctor, nurse, janitor, or anyone (really) head my way.  If they’re not here to poke or prod me, they’re here to empty my drains, which is uncomfortable or worse when someone careless is doing it.  I also have to have blood drawn for labs every day – at least it seems like every day.  A phlebotomist is not called in to do this every time; I wish they were.  Some of these nurses couldn’t find a vein if I were split open on an operating table.

I’ve been felt up a out 200 different times by 200 different surgeons, residents, attendings, and my ICU nurse. They come into my room about every 2 hours to do checks on my flaps.  I have doppler wires inserted into the bottom of each flap, and they come in, turn on the audio speaker and press against my flaps so they can hear the “whoosh whoosh whoosh” of blood flowing into and out of them.  This is to ensure that the transplanted blood vessels and tissue are still up and running smoothly.  I’m told my mini muffins (because they were born from the muffin top) are looking good and healing fantastically. But they feel like hell.

It is hard to sit or lie down with my arms to the side, it hurts to take deep breaths but I have to so that my lungs clear, and I also cannot use my arms for much of anything. This is life for the next 4 weeks and no me gusta.  The ICU nurses are kind enough to come in every now and again and try to adjust my pillows to help me.  The time spent adjusting hurts; the ability to rest in a different position is nice.

They’ve been trying to get me out of ICU and into a regular patient room since last night. I’ve already had one roommate nearly die since I’ve been in the ICU, which was sad and scary but also very intriguing to see the entire ICU staff working on that lady. My roommate now has been sedated almost the entire time because she is physically combative whenever they take her out of twilight. Word on the ward is that she has been waiting for a liver transplant for several years, has hepatitis c and was still drinking until she was admitted the other day. Some sad things going on around here. But I lived through my surgery and get to have pain medication pretty soon here. I’m not stoked that they’re already talking about taking me off of dilaudid and giving me just Tylenol. I feel like that warrants me peeing on this floor a few times until they get the hint (I’d yell but my voice is still hoarse from intubation). In the interim I’m just taking pain induced naps, watching videos of our girls, and trying to stream Netflix in this shitty wi-fi.

Beware. Scary pics attached.
May I introduce to you the newest members of the GM cereal line: BooBerry, Count Chocula, and Frankenboobies.