The surgeon came in and said everything went well. My right lobe was a lot bigger than the left apparently, and he did succeed on putting the titanium plate in. There was a risk I wouldn't get the plate if my skull was thinner than 5mm or else the screws would penetrate through the bone and touch my brain. Now if I do something stupid I can write it off as literally having a screw loose.
The first night in the ICU was the best and the worst. The best in that there were nurses doting on my every need keeping me super fucked up on dilaudid, valium, and toradol. It was also the worst in the sense of the catheter that had been placed during surgery. I'd never had one before and didn't even know I had it till I tried to scoot into an upright position and felt like my bladder was being ripped out. From that point on I was begging the nurse to take it out, promising that I felt well enough to get up to pee. She said no. It was torture. Eventually from all my complaining I made her break at 4:00am and she conceded. After that I slept well till about 7am when the surgeons nurse came in to check on me. There's something almost violating about sleeping soundly to be awoken by someone you hardly know in some strange place and feeling all disoriented and confused. I had to stop and think "Where am I??? What day is it??? Who are you??? Why does my head hurt???"
Back to sleep - then an hour later Peter arrived to check on me.
Back to sleep - then I'm awoken by someone bringing me breakfast. Soggy french toast with syrup in a plastic tube, apple juice, black coffee, and a piece of turkey bacon that though I didn't eat, I hear tasted like play-doh and salt. I was hooked up to a device that gave me dilaudid whenever I pushed a button (as long as it was at least 8 minutes apart), and survived the oncoming pain by that.
That day and next night are a complete haze. My only vivid memories pertain to going for a couple walks with the physical therapists, and getting up to pee using the shared bathroom with the patient next door with the doors that don't lock. Didn't so much care for that.
The next afternoon I was transferred out of the ICU and into the regular hospital. This time I had my own bathroom and a larger TV. I was given a menu to order food from, but by this point I was too nauseated that two bites of food and I was done. The dilaudid was no longer self administered, and given in greater amounts less frequently. It made my whole body itch so I had to be given benadryl IV as well. All these medicines pumping in through my left hand for three days left my vein feeling like it was going to explode. It burned, ached, and stung even with just saline. Luckily I had a great nurse after this point who changed out the IV and would pull up a chair and give me the injections slowly over the course of 5 minutes instead of pushing it through in 30 seconds. We talked about medicine and animals. He has horses, and a dog with a leg brace. I intend on writing a letter to the hospital about how gentle, friendly, and compassionate he was.
That night I slept well until 7am when I was awoken by the surgeons nurse again. She cut right to the chase and asked if I'd had a bowel movement yet. I said no, and tried to reason with her that since I had gone the morning before surgery, and had hardly eaten while I was there, that I didn't have to go, but she was adamant about it and ordered me a suppository and a bottle of magnesium citrate. She was not my favorite person after that. The suppository - though it worked somewhat - was really uncomfortable and painful, and for some reason I wasn't allowed to just try one or the other, I had to have both, so where the suppository worked in about 30 minutes, the citrate took a lot longer and made me just puke my guts up all afternoon. I don't know who invented that crap, but carbonated lemon juice that results in diarrhea and projectile vomiting? Really? That person should burn in hell.
P.S. - I did have to disgustingly preserve my feces as evidence that I didn't have an obstruction.
That night I felt much better, and around 9pm I was discharged. I'm glad too because the night nurse had just come on and I had a feeling she didn't know what the hell she was doing. She pulled the IV out in the most painful way possible, and didn't know which papers were mine and which were the hospitals. I got home and went straight to bed, and slept somewhat peacefully. I missed the feeling of the dog thrashing about in her sleep while laying on top of my legs.
Today has been up and down. I'm trying to keep active like the doctor said by doing some aisles at Target and going for walks with Peter and Zia. I can't walk Zia just in case she pulls and I strain myself. Nor can I open the heavy doors of the building. Or bend over to pick things up without getting dizzy, but I shall recover.
Something I didn't anticipate was how much my scalp hurts. Combing (or even touching) my hair hurts, and turning my head the the right feels like someones yanking on the top left portion of my scalp. I'm paranoid about accidentally pulling out one of my 24 staples if it gets caught on my pillow or something, and I still have no appetite. When I go out children look on in horror, as do some adults, and I so badly want someone to ask me what happened so I can say something like how I used to telekineticly set people on fire by accident and had it corrected.
Now for some fun pictures:
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| The back of my head! |
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| Close up of incisions and staples |
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