If this were a Disney movie, I'd be Quasimodo running through the aisles and passageways of Notre Dame Cathedral shouting "Sanctuary!" But, instead, I'm the scary looking, sock-footed hunchback roaming the dark hallways of the Residence Inn whispering, "I think I can, I think I can...." Somehow if feels perfectly normal to be in a loose-fitting, somewhat-revealing (in all the wrong places) hospital gown roaming the hospital hallways when everyone who passes you smiles and gives you an encouraging nod, but if feels entirely different to be wandering up and down the hotel hallways in sweats and socks looking like you're either drunk or deformed and the people who pass you just try not to make eye contact at all. But I'm not complaining! It's great to be out of the hospital.
Joy and my dad are taking great care of me. I'm slowing learning all the things that are currently impossible to do, like bending over to pick up the piece of trash I dropped on the floor or opening the heavy hotel room door or opening the pudding package because I can't pull the foil top off. One should never take their core muscles for granted! My surgery and recovery was often compared to a c-section and as I lay in my hospital bed I kept thinking, "Oh, thank God I don't have a newborn baby to care for right now!"
I think Joy kept everyone pretty well up-to-date while my mom and I were in the hospital. But here are a few insights from my perspective:
1. Being a patient at Stanford Hospital is like living in the middle of a "Grey's Anatomy" episode. It was particularly surreal while I was sitting in pre-op at 6 am Wednesday morning. I sat there waiting for about an hour as all the doctors, nurses, interns and residents filtered into the surgery area. They were chatting about the softball game after work, gossiping about the attending physicians and surgeons and comparing notes on what procedures they were going to get to work on that day. I saw one intern very obviously kissing up to one of the surgeons and trying to impress him with all his background. One lucky intern was behind the curtain across from me assisting with a femoral artery catheter - it was all the buzz among the other envious interns! The poor little old lady who was having the procedure done had no idea what a stir she was causing just outside the curtain. Like any good red-blooded single girl on the set of "Grey's Anatomy," I kept my eye out for McDreamy. On my last day there I finally found him - well, the closest thing to him (cute, nice, young - but not too young - and not wearing a wedding ring). Wouldn't you know it, he showed up exactly once: to remove the catheter from my incision that runs from just below my belly-button to just above the rapidly-growing-five-o'clock shadow where they had shaved me before surgery three days ago! Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?!
2. If my current job doesn't work out, there's always a place for me in the circus freak show. Apparently I could either be billed as "Joan - the human pincushion!" or "The woman with freakishly small veins!" By the end of our first night in the hospital before the surgery, I already been poked at least ten times. It took a couple attempts to put in my IV line, four more to draw blood, and then another four times that ended up being a complete waste. I had agreed to be part of a study that my nephrologist and surgeon are working on. They want to study how the kidneys of healthy kidney donors compensate for the lost kidney over a period of years. I was very supportive of being part of the study because I know that we all benefit from those who have been part of clinical trials and research in the past. However, after I signed all the papers and gave all my consent, the research nurse couldn't get a second IV in my other arm to do the draws that they needed, so she finally gave up on me. I was being especially patient and trying not to complain, but I almost punched her when she said that I could definitely benefit from starting to lift weights because that would make my veins bigger. A swift right hook would have shown her just how much I've already been working out......but I am not a violent person :)
3. It's prayer that gets you through the darkest moments. I tried not to be naive about what this procedure entailed and what I would feel like after surgery, but I definitely hit a wall at one point. It was Friday morning (two days after surgery). I had been trying to do everything they asked me to do and had managed to sit in a chair and walk to my hospital room door on Thursday, but not without excruciating pain. They told me, "The first time is the hardest. It gets easier after that." To this, I have one thing to say "Liar!" The first FOUR times are miserable, and then it gets slightly bearable after that. My breakdown included lots of tears (try crying after abdominal surgery - not fun!), a nurse whom I inwardly cursed (but later outwardly thanked and praised), a poor lab tech-in-training who stared at my arm like she had never seen a vein before, and some nameless resident who casually dropped by to give me the box with the instructions for the unexpected shot I was going to have to give myself every day at home for the next week. At some point it just became too much to handle and I just lost it. I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. They told me I wouldn't feel better until I started walking, but I couldn't get past the pain to even stand upright. It was two days after the surgery and nothing felt like it was getting better. That's the point where you just give it up to God. I'm sure it's only the prayers that got me through it - both the prayers I offered up and the many from all of you who have been praying and thinking healing thoughts for us. I can't say "thank you" enough to all of you.
4. When you think you've got it bad, you don't have to look very far to see that someone else has it worse. In my case, I only had to look to my right about six feet. The first couple days in my room after surgery, I could only see my hospital roommate when she got up to walk to the bathroom. All I knew about her was that she was strong enough to get out of bed frequently to pee and she got "real" food at mealtime (I could smell it.) I was envious on both accounts. But as we talked more through the curtain, I learned that Taylor was awaiting her 17th abdominal surgery on Friday, but before that she will have surgery on her leg on Wednesday to insert a filter which will hopefully catch the blood clot that has formed in her leg after her last surgery. Her longest stretch in a hospital at one time was a month. She's lost 100 pounds during the whole ordeal. It wasn't too long before I too was making frequent trips to the bathroom and getting the "real" food tray at mealtime, and then I was packing up my bag to leave. It was then that I realized my ordeal had been so small in comparison to what others go through. My dad and Joy met a couple women in my mom's unit who had been coming to the hospital every day for four and nine months respectively. It sheds a real light on "in sickness and in health".
My mom continues to do a little better each day. Today she had all the other tubes removed except the catheter. The plan is still for her to be released tomorrow (Monday). We both know we are in good hands: our caretakers', Stanford's and ultimately in God's hands.
Many, many thanks for all your comments, prayers and love. Joy shared them with us in the hospital and they really were greatly appreciated.
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