That may have been the most useless appointment ever

Today's appointment left me feeling pretty grouchy all day.  

First, I had the appointment accurately written on my calendar for months now.  I got a confirmation call yesterday saying that the appointment time was 15 minutes earlier than I had written down.  Instead of looking back at my folder of paper work (which I easily could have done but didn't so I am fully to blame), I just made the necessary adjustments to get childcare a bit earlier and get there for their time.  It turns out this 15 minutes earlier wasn't the actual appointment time, it was just their attempt at making sure patients arrive on time.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessively early for everything, so really 15 minutes early for the 15 minute early time they gave me.  FRUSTRATING!  I sat in the warmth of the full windowed waiting room and read a good book for over 30 minutes.  I was called in for my appointment just 3 minutes after my originally scheduled time.  They would have been getting the highest rating for wait time on my survey if they had just stuck to the regular schedule!

In the appointment I went through the usual with the nurse.  She said I didn't have to get naked or anything which I figured was a plus and the doctor would be in in a few minutes.  Doctor PJ and his med student (Side note: he always has med students--different ones with him each time. They always ask if it is OK for the student to join.  I always say yes, thinking that I am helping contribute to a new generation of knowledge.) came in unusually quickly.  I didn't even get to see his nurse practitioner who usually comes in first.  He asked me how I was doing, asked to see the incisions, and said they look perfect.  He then got up to leave saying everything looks great, we don't have to see you anymore.  WHOAH!  It was like a minute and a half tops.  He didn't even touch my stomach or the incisions.  I had questions to ask that I didn't get to.  He didn't even notice that I had designated on the health update form that I was still experiencing abnormal bleeding.  I stopped him to ask about that and he quickly explained an answer but he was clearly on a mission.  He spent more time giving me referrals to other affiliated doctors who I could go to for a regular doctor from here out than talking about my recovery.  I was so thrown by this that I didn't remember to ask the rest of my questions. I wanted to know about my pathology report.  I wanted to know about my CA125 numbers.  I wanted to know about the knot that I have over one of the incisions or the pulling pain I still get occasionally.  I wanted to tell him that "slight gas discomfort" he described that I'd feel after surgeryis a bigger deal than he made it sound like.  I cannot believe that I ever said that he might be the Dr. Colette of gynecology.  He was nothing like that today! 

Because of this, I will probably end up on the phone quite a bit this week with the nurse practitioner or back there to see him two weeks from now the next time he is in town.  I have decided that he must have had a busy day booked of surgeries that he wanted to make sure he stayed on schedule for just like he did for mine 4 weeks ago and that's why he wasn't able to provide the time he had in the past. 

More than 3 weeks

It's been more than three weeks.  I'm doing more, feeling good.  The bruising is finally almost gone.  One bruise stuck around so much longer than the others.  It was shaped like a crescent moon and reminded me of the Relay for Life symbol.  With the bruising gone, I am now capable of wearing pants with a real waist band.  Even though I am capable of it, you'll still see me quite often in yoga pants.  I have my 4 week check up on Friday to hopefully get the all clear.  My kids are ready for me to start lifting them up on the swings again!

I had an interesting thought today at the dentist.  For those of you like me, how much of this do you share with others?  The dentist asked today if there was anything new I needed to add to my medical history.  I thought about it for a second and then just said no.  Now if I was filling it out in a form, I probably would have updated it.  But I really didn't feel like having the conversation with the hygienist about what I had removed and why.  I don't know why.  I usually have no problem talking about it.  Is it really important that they know I don't have my Fallopian tubes?  I'm hoping it isn't.

I've got a good one

I am so lucky to have a great person to help take care of me through all this.  That's something that I've noticed in the media about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.  Many articles commend Brad Pitt for being by Angelina's side.  Well I have my own good guy.  He has made all of these decisions and surgeries much easier through his support.  Before appointments that he knows I get quite nervous for, he'll arrange for a date.  Here we are at Captian's Walk and Hagemeister Park (in which we found ourselves with a perfect heart shaped onion ring) before my final appointment. The weekend before surgery to keep my mind off things, we went out of town to visit some friends and go to a game. Post surgery he constantly comes to the rescue when I start things and realize that I cannot complete them.  He may over-estimate my ability to take care of our children soon after surgery, but he makes up for that with his cooking meals and cleaning while I "take it easy."  In addition to the time he has taken off of work for these things, he comes home every day at lunch to make sure that I have everything under control.  Thank you, Mitch.  I'm a lucky girl!

1 week later--lessons learned

It has been over a week now since my salpingectomy.  I am feeling good.  I've hit the point where the bruising is going away and the dermabond is getting itchy and falling off.  I love when this happens.  All this time my incisions have been closed with this clear glue.  The look pretty gross all ragged and bloody.  But then the glue starts to peel away from the skin and behind it is this magical little bitty pink line.  What was hideous turns out to be not that bad at all. Only one of the sites is still slightly painful.  It's the largest one right above my belly button where the largest of tools was used and the largest bruise was.

I have learned a lot of lessons from this surgery that I will take with me from now on:

• I will never take another surgery lightly.  I didn't think this one would be a big deal and because of that didn't plan well.  For any future surgery, I will not assume that my body will immediately bounce back. Whether under anethesia for 8 hours or 30 minutes,  my body needs time to get back to normal. 
• Even though I like to think I have a high pain tolerance,  if a doctor prescribes pain meds, it's an obvious sign that there will be pain involved and I should take them.  This was my biggest problem with this surgery.  For my mastectomy, I never woke up in intense pain.  I kept on top of the pain meds taking them round the clock for the first while because I knew the pain would be bad.  I should have done the same thing this time at least for the first day or two.  
• Just because I start feeling better, it doesn't mean you actually are back to normal.  On day 4 I posted that I really started to feel better.  Which led to me thinking that on Day 5 I could do a lot of things that I shouldn't have like vacuum, pull the hose out around the yard to water the flowers, or let the girls bike during our walk which I know leads to trouble when one little girl's legs just get too tired.  I knew that I have a lifting restriction of 8 pounds, but to me I justified it because pushing, pulling, or dragging is not lifting.  Silly me spent Day 6 regretting all the actions of Day 5.  I know better now.  I will be taking it easy more.  This is what happens in my house when I take it easy. One daughter dances and signs with the dog while the other sets up an obstacle course with every basket or box she can find while I read on the couch.  

Getting better now

Today is Day 3 and I think things are getting better now.  I slept much better last night.  When I woke up this morning, I was able to stand upright right away (the last two days that had been a struggle for awhile).  I am just taking tylenol now for pain.  We've taken two walks around the neighbor hood.  Unfortunately, Stella can't come yet because I am afraid she will pull and I won't be able to handle that yet.  I do look like kind of like a mess.  I found that compression on the bruised and swollen areas feels better.  But it doesn't look good, I am pretty much wearing a mumu over my exercise leggings.  If you are interested in checking out some graphic pictures of my incisions, click here.  I like to take pictures often so that I can see that things are getting better even when I feel like it isn't. But I don't want to force those uncomfortable to see them.  Right now, I think things are looking worse even though it's feeling better.  That seems to be the way things go with bruising though.

I think I was just too impatient the last few days and expected to be feeling fine way too soon.

Sleep

Last night was a rough night.  I could not find a way to sleep comfortably.  Some ways I tried I felt like I couldn't breathe because of intense shoulder pain.  If it tried rolling on my side, I felt like my insides were falling all over the place.  My back is sore from only being able to sleep on it. I can't take a deep breathe, laugh, hiccup, or cough without intense pain.  I didn't want to take pain meds, but definitely needed to.  I should have just taken more when I woke up during the night rather than trying to switch to sleeping in the recliner.

Thankfully, I posted on the FORCE page asking for advice and got some great tips.  The pain that I am feeling is most likely gas related.  Some of the CO2 used to inflate me during surgery is still inside causing this pain. I tried to be more active today as walking is said to help this gas dissipate faster.  So to celebrate Father's Day, we went for lunch at Curly's Pub in Lambeau and walked around the atrium a bit.  Mitch enjoyed his gift.  He finally started reading this blog again, so I'll give him a little feature.  He does think that he missed his calling as a competitive eater.

 

Then this afternoon we went for a walk on the DePere River Walk.  The girls loved seeing the pelicans.  I have a new respect for the work of the people on the locks after getting a chance to see it up close during our class field trip there.  They were busy manually turning everything the entire time we were there.  We then spent some time with my family tonight. Hopefully being active today (and not napping at all) will help for a better night of sleep tonight.

My thoughts so far

I will admit that it hasn't been as easy as I thought it was going to be.  There isn't a huge body of work out there on the "tubes only" surgery that I had.  Before my mastectomy, I read and read and read and knew exactly what to expect. For this one though, there are resources about other gynecological surgeries such as hysterectomy or resources about what Fallopian tube removal is like after ectopic pregnancies but nome of these seemed to match my situation. In my mind, I figured that women have their tubes tied in the doctors office, so removal of them can't be that much different. I honestly thought I would feel perfectly fine today and that around maybe grocery shopping or something.  I didn't think pain meds would be involved at all!  I probably should have read more about laparoscopic gynecological surgeries as no matter what you have removed, these robotic surgeries are quite similar.

Here is a recap:

The morning yesterday went well.  I was very impressed with how smoothly everything went at this hospital.  I had great nurses who never made me feel forgotten about like last time.   Right on time at 12:30 I rolled into surgery. I woke up in the recovery room in a lot of pain.  I did not expect that at all, but they quickly helped take care of that.  As I move onto another room I struggled more with nausea, dizziness, and more pain.  It was Friday afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything since Wednesday night., so some of these thing could be attributed to that.  I wanted to eat but could barely get 2 crackers down. I needed to eat something with the pain meds.  I'd feel like I was going to puke but was afraid it would really hurt and couldn't get myself upright without more pain.  They gave me something for the nausea and I was able to start feeling better but I was still so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.  At about 5:30 I was able to be discharged and we went home.  I had this long list of foods that I thought I would want first, but I really just ended up eating applesauce and sleeping th rest of the night.

Still this morning I have significant pain. It is all centralized around the incisions which are about belly button level. It is different than after c-sections because that incision is lower and I felt tugging and pulling whenever I would move. It feels kind of like I was punched or spin kicked in the stomach over and over.  It is tough getting comfortable or taking a deep breath more because of the bruising sort of pain. I don't know why I didn't think of this, it makes logical sense, but I have drainage similar to what it's like after having a baby. It shouldn't last long though they explained. I also have a rash on my back, neck, and chest.  I think I had a start of it yesterday after the miralax diet.  I have shooting pains in my shoulder as well because of the CO2 used to inflate me.

I am eating like normal though and can walk upright rather than hunched over like yesterday.  I will probably take a nap soon.

Today is going to be a good day

Today is going to be a good day because...

• Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that genes cannot be patented.  For a full article check this link.  This is going to make it so much easier for people to get genetic testing! 
• It's Relay for Life day in Kewaunee and LOTS of family are getting together for it.
• My cousin posted a beautiful picture of her mom on the anniversary of her death 22 years ago yesterday. The girls came by the computer while I was looking at it and it gave me a great opportunity to tell them about her. It helped me explain to why I am going to have more "owies" and helped Aila in particular feel less worried about me going to the hospital today. 
• Bowel prep wasn't as awful as I expected.  It's still in the top three worst medical things I have ever had to do. I am really hungry though and learned that I will never tease my dad again about his post-colonoscopy meal choices.  I have quite a list of foods that I've been thinking about wanting first.  
• Speaking of food, I grabbed a hospital food menu for Mitch while I was in the waiting room last week.  Door County Fish boil is on the menu today.  I find this hilarious because Mitch hated the fish boil that we had for an anniversary dinner at White Gull Inn a few years ago.  He's the only person I've ever heard of who disliked a meal at White Gull.  Fitting that it's on the menu for him today.
• And finally I'm about to take my ovarian cancer risks down a notch. We're off to the hospital now!  I'm excited!

Cheers

Cheers, sort of...

Nothing to eat today except clear liquids and these goodies.

Surgery is on

I was cleared for surgery today.  The cardiologist agreed that my low heart rate is likely just a sign of good health.  At its lowest it was 34, but most other checks have been between 50 and 70.  Running pays off!  All of this monitoring my heart rate though has me very curious and interested in trying out a heart rate monitor to wear while running.