Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
My day started fine, of course the pain killers helped that. Our sitter sent me pics of William happily spending the night at her house and even a video of him telling me that he loved me and blowing me a kiss, so I woke up to that. It was excellent. My nurse was Jill and my PCA was Alex. They were both amazing. I instantly fell in love with both of them. I had no orders that day but to rest. I hit my morphine pump a lot and I was very happy that it was connected. The nurses checked my flaps every hour with a doppler to make sure that they were receiving oxygen and blood was flowing. It pretty much sounded the same as a baby’s fetal heartbeat and it was just as sweet of a sound every time I heard it.
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. - Unknown
A few doctors stopped by and I heard a lot of introductions that started with “I know you don’t remember, but I assisted with your surgery yesterday”, so there really were a ton of people in there. Everyone kept commenting on how good my incisions and flaps looked and I even heard a few “best I’ve ever seen” comments. It was very uplifting and calming.
Besides the hourly monitoring, I was connected to a machine that constantly monitored my flaps, of course the morphine pump, fluids and antibiotics through an IV, pain meds that were timed and automatically injected into my stomach, and oxygen pumped into my nose. The oxygen was the most annoying thing to me. I felt like there was constantly something coming out of my nose and I know that Sarah thought that I was going to rub it raw. I couldn’t leave it alone. I made sure that I complained about it to anyone that came into the room, not that it did anything.
Sarah came as my support person that day (and every single day, for that matter). She also made instant friends with Jill and Alex. I was still severely dehydrated and took those swabs of water like they were a steak dinner. Later that day I was released for a liquid diet. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so surprised by horrible hospital food. It was BAD. Not too big of an issue, though, since I had no appetite. All I wanted was water. I don’t even know how much I drank, but every time a nurse or PCA came in my room, they were filling it up, and my friends and family were constantly refilling it, too. I felt so dehydrated and thirsty and craved water.
Midday Jill asked if I would like to try to sit in the chair. I have no idea why, but I felt like it was a moment of empowerment and I was excited to try. I’m not going to lie, it hurt, but I made it there without incident and was proud of myself for not only trying, but doing it successfully. I spent the rest of the day there.
I had quite a few visitors that evening. I can't remember the order, but I know that Carrie, Scott, Claudia, Dad, Ginny, and of course Jason were all there at some point. I also received two balloon bouquets, one from Kate and the other from Dad and Ginny. They were a nice pop of color in the room. I'm pretty foggy about the events of that day, and I'm blaming my morphine pump for that. I do remember having a bit of difficulty getting back into bed for the night and needing the assistance of two nurses. For some reason, at the time, I was pretty embarrassed by this. In hindsight, I am actually proud that I even got out of bed that day.
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