Homeward Bound Tonight!

For starters I figured I needed to fire my mother from blogging for a while. She never uses smily faces or exclamation points...those are two musts that help with emotion. In addition, what kind of blog title is Day 1 and Day 2? Mom, you are Fired!!! exclamation point!

Okay so here is what I remember. I do not remember what my mother has written so forgive repitition and enjoy a different point of view.

Going into surgery was not half as scary as it was last time. I am not sure if that is because I had time to really think about it or if I am just becoming a pro. I calmly waited for my turn for them to come take me away. I kept thinking about the "lamb to the slaughter" scripture and it started freaking me out so I quickly reverted my thoughts to much happier things. I went under peacfully and the surgery was a lot shorter than last time... so wonderful on my parents and Joshua, the same for me. The only thing I could remember about waking up was asking for Joshua. I asked for him over and over and the nurses had no idea who Joshua was. It felt like I asked forever until my faithful parents and Joshua came in the room. As soon as they saw his handsome face, they knew exactly why I was asking for Joshua over and over. The remark I got when I first saw my parents last time was "man, she has a lot of hair." This time, "Man she has a lot of tubes stuck to her head." I would have perfered the first comment personally, but whatever. I then counted the things sticking out of my arms. I knew I had  the original IV but during surgery they snuck 3 more in there. I had 4 IV's when I woke up. My total count of tubes coming out of my body to a machine was unreal. Both of my legs had the motion squeezers on them to prevent blood clots. I also had a uterine tube that was then followed by 6 vital patches stragically placed around my torso. My unacessed port was just chillin there like most ports do...:) I could not understand why they did not use that! I had my four IV's in my arms and I had my breathing nose things (hate them) and the last but most painful, four catheters coming from my skull. That is a total of  17 things coming out of my body connected to other things. 17! Ridiculous. I quickly got rid of the nose breathing thing when the nurse was not looking...ohh I forgot the finger blood oxygen level tube...that makes 18. The nurses caught me the first time I took it out but let me go after the next few times. I was breathing just fine thank you. Next came off one of the IVs  but only one! Then came the uterine catheter. I was actually really sad when they took that. There was no way I wanted to get out of bed when I had to go and they fill you so full of fluids during surgery I knew I was going to have to go every other minute! They took it out
 after my complaining but left all the rest of the miserable tubes. The very very worst tubes were the brain catheters but they get a whole different paragraph later. Two of my IV's shut down from being pounded with so much so they had to finally access my port! Now, what a great idea! I can sleep fine with my port and it is never in the way for anything. My love for my port has grown dramatically during this experience. Anyway, you get the picture...I was hooked up to way too many things! I would have rather had a surprising amount of hair. The first few days were full of sleeping and pain meds and then some more sleeping. Eating was never on the menu and to tell you the truth...it really still isn't. The thought of food makes me sick and I make my poor Joshua eat at the back of the room because I can't stand the smell. I thought that I was constantly nauseus and sick because I just could not heal and that something was wrong. Tom (my favorite night nurse) finally told me last night that it is the anitbotics that make me so sick but that they never tell patients that because then they will start to fear them. I think they are crazy. This place is a prision and you ain't going anywhere because there are more gaurds than prisioners in the ICU. You would never leave so it doesn't matter if you are scared of the medicine. YOU ARE GETTING IT! Why not just understand why you are sick?

So, I get to take this stomach renching med for 6 weeks, 3 times a day, 2 hours each time. Sounds fun. :(

I thought that I was going to heal much quicker and easier this time but I thought wrong. I still have head pains and problems but I like to blame them all on the cursed catheters instead of my body. During surgery Dr. Smith placed 4 tubes in my skull. They are called "feed me, drain me" tubes. Medicine goes in one tube and out the other and they are emptied every hour without fail. That means every hour of the night... I think it was two nights ago that I learned that my tubes were going to be taken out. I was actually happy. These tubes made life hard. I could not move my head or sleep at all so I was tickled to get them out. Tickled until I got them out! I have expereinced a lot of pain in my days...more than many 21 year old girls... and I have never experienced anything like this before. They did not numb me and the morphine did not do anything. Dr. Smith sent a resident to torture me cause he could not do it himself. Okay, writing about it is making me sick so I have to stop.

Sorry I really am sick now.


I am coming home tonight....I will try to write more.

Love me,

Tumorless, tubeless  Tara