It's Not Date Night

In the beginning, I wanted to keep my surgery on the down low, so I didn't tell a lot of people.  I don't know how to explain the many reasons why.  I just didn't know what to expect and I didn't want a ton of attention drawn to me as I explored this new, uncharted territory.  Mostly, I just wanted to hurry and get it over with and finish healing before the Christmas/New Year's break was over and then get on with my life.

The Doctor said it would take 6-8 weeks to fully heal.  But, who has time like that on their hands?  He said I would be completely out of commission for at least two weeks.  But, secretly, in my mind, I knew I could get lots of work done on the computer and catch up on my "how to be a better parent" book reading during those two weeks in bed.  Ha!  What did he know?

Well, it turns out that you can't read books or write coherent articles for the newspaper when you are taking narcotics around the clock.  They are fun (the meds), but make the brain kind of fuzzy and hard to concentrate or string words together in understandable sentences.  It turns out the Doctor was right and I couldn't do pretty much anything (including showering or putting on clothes without assistance for the first 9 days - what the heck?).

Well, now that I am a little more than 2 weeks out from the surgery and still wearing my pajamas every day and walking like an old lady (no offense to old ladies - but my sympathies), my surgery that was suppose to come and go like a blip on the radar is becoming more and more common place knowledge.  Plus, I started blogging about it (not that many people read this blog, but still - I guess I don't really know who reads this blog?).

And, now I have one more little side note of a story (before getting to the point of this post) to tell you something amazing!

I like to make homemade hummus, and Brian loves to eat my homemade hummus.  It is really simple to make, but every time I make it, I pull out the recipe and double check, just to make sure I don't overlook any of the ingredients.

Well, on day 1 or day 2 of my surgery (it's all fuzzy to me now), Brian wanted to make some hummus and apparently I said all of the ingredients and directions to him (in the right order) from my bed.  And, the next day, I couldn't even remember doing it!  And, the hummus turned out great.  So, I guess now I know I do have that recipe memorized.  A-mazing.

I know this has taken awhile, but I am getting to the point of this post - it's a little piece of advice about surgery not being a vacation or even an excuse for a date night.

I had my surgery early on a Wedensday morning and on Friday afternoon, the Doctor wanted me to come in so he could have a look and see how I was doing (it was his first time meeting me that I was NOT smiling, not to mention not wearing make-up and my hair was a fuzzy mess since I couldn't stand up long enough to even blow dry it after my "assisted" shower and having Brian put my support hose on - we will be such cute old people together, now I know).  Anyways, I was not smiling or feeling good at all, but they said I seemed pretty much the way I should be for post-op day 2. 

Then, we left the Doctor's office and the narcotics that were affecting my brain dissolved all reason and made me think, "Hey, my mom has the kids for the night, this is kind of like a date.  Just me and my husband driving in a car on a Friday night."  And, again, I have almost no memory of this at all, but apparently I suggested that he call Cafe Rio and order two salads to go so that we could go home and have like a "stay in" date night.  I don't recall him running in to get the salads or anything, but I do remember sitting at the table at home eating this delicious salad and thinking what a great idea I had until I got halfway through and said, "I think I am going to throw up."  And, people - regrettably, that is what I did.  And, if crying is a bad idea when you've just had major abdominal surgery, throwing up is horrible.

And, the worst part was that I had just taken my pain meds less than 10 minutes before I threw up.  So, I didn't know if I should take more pain meds.  Because if I took double, that could be a dangerous overdose.  But, if I had none in my system that could also be a recipe for disaster.  So, I called the Doctor after hours and asked him what to do and he said, "Did you see the pills in the, well, you know . . ."  And, of course I had no idea and Brian had no idea because it was all so fuzzy and confusing.  Then, he said, "Well, try to gauge your pain level and if it feels like you are in more pain then take another pain pill."

Well, Doc, here is the thing, I just heaved my guts out a mere 48-hour after having my abdomen cut open and all of the muscles stitched tightly back together to close up a hernia, so my pain level is pretty high right now, but it's kind of hard to tell which is the cause - that or the fact that the pain pill came up, you know?

So, I gave up that conversation because it was not helpful.

Anyways, it was kind of an ugly scene and I am telling you this in case you ever have surgery and you have young kids at home and you so rarely get a night without them that you start thinking you are on a date night.  Well.  You're not.

And, this kind of reminds me of the time about nine years ago when I was feeling a little burned out taking care of my little 1 and 2.5 year old babies and I was scheduled to have oral surgery.  I was so in need of a break that I said in the back of my mind, "Hmmm, being sedated and lying in a chair for a few hours sounds quite like a vacation right now."  But, there were some complications (they were working on a front top tooth) and the next day I looked like I had been punched in the mouth - which made me feel self conscious like people might see me and think I had been in a fist fight with someone.  After it was all over, I said to myself, "That was NOT a vacation."

I guess I never learn.