#2 and 3 were supposed to go under anesthesia yesterday but someone fucked up and left food and water in their kennel over night

[bitchfitch]

They should invent a way to call the boarders about my cats that wouldn't involve irritating a real live person who has a job to do that is not telling me my cats are ok.

[unwillingtopost]

Today’s Worries

This is my first post in forever. That’s an actual date.

It seemed a small thing (which I suppose by definition isn’t, or at least is not easily attainable, or omg, is this going to be boring to read later, or what) to commit to writing every day JUST WHAT I DID so I could remember. How hard could that be? I did that for a while while I rode the train to and from work. So the date is July 1, 2018. This has been my week.

1. Last Monday, June 25, I was scheduled for THD, or transanal hemorrhoidal dearterialization surgery to get rid of the hemorrhoids I have been suffering from since approximately 2001 and which I decided I wanted to get rid of in preparation for my backpacking adventure with Miles in the Grant Tetons in approximately four weeks.

2. Last Monday, June 25, I arrived at Glenbrook Hospital at 8 am, unprepared for the pain and misery to come. At 9.15 or so, Dr. Spitz walked in just as I was about to walk into the bathroom and said he’d come back, but I said, no, I want to tell you that I have a possible abscess in my tooth and my dentist prescribed antibiotics which I haven’t taken yet, and is that okay? Can we still do the surgery? Also, I’m in a terrible amount of pain. He said it was fine.

3. Last Monday, June 25, while I was driving to Glenbrook Hospital, I was distracted by periodic waves of blinding pain alternately emanating from my upper left tooth and my lower left tooth which started out with a yawning acknowledgement of eerie feeling, widened into a small storm brewing and spreading over an unsuspecting piece of airy geography, and then swallowed me whole in a fracturing starbust of pulsating, scorching and piercing pain which stretched across my upper and lower teeth and up along my jawbone, into my ear and finally wisped out over my scalp and into my brain just as I was about to lose my grip on the steering wheel while traveling 50 mph in rush hour traffic.

4. Last Monday, June 25, At about 9.30, Dr. Cochran, the anesthesiologist, walked in and said you have two choices, and I recommend the first one, but I’ll tell you about the second one because people want to know it. So I recommend you get a spinal. We put a needle in your spine and your body under your waist will go to sleep. The alternative, which a guy yesterday just next door took, and I don’t know, because I don’t recommend it, is for me to intubate you and shove a tube down your throat and put you under total general anesthesia, which I don’t recommend.

5. Last Monday, June 25, a nurse came in and said she was the pre-op nurse and asked me some questions that I don’t remember. Maybe all the same things about my medical history. Oh, and everyone who walked into the room asked me my first and last name and my date of birth. Every single person. Every single time. Then she left, and she appears in a strange spot later. Hold on.

6. Last Monday, June 25, another nurse came in and said she was the surgical nurse and would be taking me back to the operating room. Her name was Kelsey and she said people stayed away from her because she was a bad driver, a story she told me as she guided my bed down the hall. (It hadn’t occurred to me yet that I would be wheeled into the operating room at all, let alone on my bed, which I hadn’t realized was mobile). She was also wearing a sweater because she said it was freezing in the operating room, which she also remarked was a good thing because bacteria bred in warm, wet places, and we definitely didn’t want any bacteria breeding in the operating room, did we?

7. Last Monday, June 25, Kelsey brought me into the operating room where Dr. Cochran was waiting, and the pre-op nurse, and they asked me to sit on the side of the bed with my legs hanging over and the pre-op nurse got into front of me and put her hands on my chest (to keep me from falling over? I’m not sure, but it was a very intimate position.) while Kelsey and Dr. Cochran lifted the back of my gown to give me the spinal, which felt exactly like someone inserting a needle into your spine, from the popping sound of the needle piercing the skin and then the force it takes for someone to push the needle into your spine. Kelsey guided the needle into my spine with the help of her sharp fingernails, which she used as pencil lines to mark where she wanted to put the needle into my spine. I wasn’t sure if I was receiving four injections or just one injection four times, but I felt approximately four needles enter my spine. At one point, I heard Dr. Cochran say, well, that would have been difficult for anyone.

8. Last Monday, June 25, Kelsey also said something about putting something in my IV to make me sleepy and then Dr. Spitz was there, and they said they were ready, and then I was waking up with my head on my hands and I was flat on my stomach, and they wheeled me out of the operating room back into my room and I came in, and Laura was there, and her mom, and they rolled me into the new bed. (The old bed? Was I on a stretcher? Maybe I ruined my first bed with operation detritus.)

9. Last Monday, June 25, I’m not really sure if Laura and her mom were there when I got back into the room or not. I think maybe the nurse called them. I had another nurse then, who spent the rest of the day with me, and she was great, but I can’t remember her name right now. She had a white woman’s name. Not Tiffany or Fiona or Jessica or Lisa or Lindsay? Maybe Lindsay? I don’t remember.

10. I’m still on Monday, June 25, and she brought me applesauce (I of course couldn’t eat anything else they were offering -- why is food in hospitals SO BAD?) which I devoured and water (did I mention I couldn’t eat or drink anything from 10 pm the night before) and coffee.

11. My legs were numb, like dead, like no feeling, like trippy, and I could kind of move by lifting my butt but I couldn’t feel my butt and it seemed like I was wearing a lot of stuff on my butt. (This post is largely going to be about my butt from here onwards, FYI). At some point, with everyone in my room, I lifted my sheet to figure out what that thing was on my leg, and it was my penis, which I couldn’t feel. “My penis is numb,” I said, and Laura said, you said that in front of my mother, and I said, but it is. I can’t feel it. My penis is totally numb.

12. Then there was the recovery time, which on the phone the day before with Nurse Nancy (I think) said would be 1-2 hours after surgery. But the day went on and on and on and on and I was in the room with Laura and her mother and they got me crudite and almonds from the hospital cafeteria and coffee and I ate and drank as much as I could, but I was just killing time. I even tried to put the TV on at some point, and I was SO TIRED. There was this whole thing where they said I couldn’t leave until I could walk AND pee. Apparently, my body had peed some in my bed, but that didn’t count as I couldn’t feel it, and it wasn’t measurable, and they had to measure it, because we were in a hospital and it had to be recorded.

13. I decided to try to walk and they said I had to be able to swing both my legs over to the side of the bed without holding them up with my hands, but I could only really do my left one, and they said the left side often recovered more quickly than the right side, but they didn’t know why. Anyway, nurse lady Lindsay (not her real name) brought in another nurse lady (Laura wasn’t allowed to help, for professional liability reasons, I imagine, Northshore Hospital thank you very much) and apparently, even though I really wanted to be able to swing my legs over to the side, wanting was not enough, and I cheated by lifting my right leg with my hand and they said fine, okay, and brought a walker over and said can you put your feet on the floor and I could kind of (but not really) and I tried to stand up, but there was no way, so they said I had to get back into bed and they gave me a container to try and pee into. Which is so hard to do at all, but especially in bed, and especially apparently when your penis is numb, or mostly.

14. It’s still Monday, June 25, and I finally was able to walk with help and made it to the bathroom where both nurses helped me sit on the toilet and then stood there and I was like, I can’t pee if you’re watching, and they were like, we’ve seen it all, and I was like, I’m sure, but this is MINE, and I sat and I could feel how fucked up my body was and I peed into the container 100 ml and then 200 ml and I had to really strain, but they finally were satisfied and let me get up and let me stand at the toilet, where I was finally able to pee more, and they let me wash my hands, and finally said I could go home. We were only there for like 8-9 hours (they said it would be 4-5). They took me out in a wheelchair and Laura went and got the car and the nurse stood with me, but wouldn’t let Laura take a picture of us.

15. Driving home was torture. Every bump hurt. Laura had gotten my opiod and stool softener prescriptions from the hospital pharmacy, and I did my best to hold my breath, even though the painkillers were kicking in and I still had a lot of numbness, and I think when we finally got home, Laura helped me into the house, and up the stairs and I got into bed. I also peed in my pants a little on the way home and could only tell because my pants were wet.

Okay, that was Monday. I must have fallen asleep. Laura skipped her meeting because they said I shouldn’t be alone.

Tuesday.

I took a lot of pills and maybe watched some movies. I still had about 8 hours of CLE to finish before Friday, so I watched some CLE videos. My teeth were still rocking the pain out of my whole being, so the painkillers were serving double duty for my teeth and my butt. I tried to heat up some leftovers of soft food and I dropped it all over the kitchen floor, which I then had to clean because we have a mouse and an ant problem, both of which increased in my week of being inept and unconscious.

Wait, now I remember. I woke up really early and went downstairs to the basement and watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Later I watched Heat. When Abe got home, I watched Moana with them.

NOTE: ALL I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS WHOLE WEEK WAS PEEING AND POOPING, i.e., CAN I PEE? CAN I POOP? CAN I DO EITHER WITHOUT IT HURTING LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING RAZOR RASH PIZZA CHEESE? IN MY BUTT?

I was sent home from the hospital with a sitz bath, which is a plastic bowl which fits over the toilet and it comes with a IV-like bag with plastic tubing, and you’re supposed to fill the bowl with warm water and fill the bag with warm water so it replenishes the warm water in the bowl (while of course hanging it from your suddenly-present IV rack in your bathroom), and then sit on it on the toilet and the water spills into the toilet and you feel relief. Except that’s a giant big watery mess and the tube sprays water everywhere when you can’t figure out how to clamp it correctly. I tried with no luck and then remembered how nurse with no name said one of her patients said it worked better in the bath (and I admit at first I was wondering if I was supposed to be pooping in this, but the answer to that is no) so I set it up in the bath and it DID bring relief although it FUCKING HURTS the rest of your butt to sit with your butthole in a plastic bowl of hot water because the sides of the plastic bowl are sharp and you have to hold yourself up on the sides of the bathtub. So yes, relief, and what a big pain in the ass, literally, figuratively and every other way. That’s my review.

ALSO don’t forget how much my teeth still hurt.

I didn’t go to the site meeting or to band, my regular Tuesday night haunts.

Wednesday

Oh, we were supposed to host a party on Wednesday. We were going to weed the backyard and clean the house. And I couldn’t walk and I was on massive painkillers. But intrepid Laura went on anyway. She stayed home from school and worked and cooked (and I had the strength and energy to cut up a shit load of crudite and also pack most of the kids’ lunches.) I mostly stayed in the basement sleeping and watching stuff and doing CLE and then people came over and I took a shower (after possibly the first successful sitz bath) and went outside (WALKED!) and took an extra pain pill and tried to be as social as possible, but ended up sitting on the couches with everyone at the end of the night and falling asleep (well, fighting falling asleep which everyone noticed) so everyone went home, and that ended up the only time I saw Cullen and Jason on their big trip here on Searah’s birthday to make up for leaving her on her birthday two years ago, and there was also a lot of kid drama (really, Daphne said he gender identity was a cat, SIGH). And jumping on my couches. And drinking. And lots of pizza.

I didn’t go to the board meeting. I didn’t go because of my pain and recovery. I don’t know if I would have gone if it was just the party. I didn’t have the luxury of choice.

Thursday.

I drove Miles to the bus in the morning, which was crazy because I hadn’t driven in days, and hadn’t sat in a car seat in days AND was still on painkillers (AND MY TEETH STILL WERE KILLING ME) and then went home and tried to poop for hours until I went to a CM design meeting and brought a pillow and sat on a chair and talked for 2-3 hours with architects and designers.

Then I went to the store and picked up stuff for dinner and then went home and collapsed. Finished watching CLE videos.

Friday.

I went in for my root canal. I told the dentist that I had been taking the antibiotic since Monday, and I was on painkillers, and my pain was off the charts, but I wasn’t convinced that it was coming from my top or bottom or both OR that the pain was entirely in my head, and he said it wasn’t in my head at all and it sounded like I had an abscess. I was able to sit in the chair for an hour while he and his assistant tortured my teeth because of the painkillers plus the local novocaine anesthetic that he shot me full of.

THIS WAS MY WEEK FOR ANESTHETIC! I forgot to talk about the phone call I had with Dr. Spitze’s nurse about my progress, and I said I was still kind of numb in my perenium area (this was Wednesday, I think) and she said that might have been the lidocaine they injected you with. AREN’T THEY SUPPOSED TO TELL ME THAT BEFORE THEY DO IT?

Laura arranged for her mother to pick me up after my root canal because I didn’t plan for how I would get home (Laura drove me) in my condition. She dropped me off at home. That night, Miles had a sleepover and Abe and Laura went to the beach with Jason and Cullen and Searah and the gang, and I stayed home by my lonesome.

(New theme -- I stayed home by my lonesome A LOT this week. I usually don’t mind that, but this week was particularly difficult.)

I had been going to bed at about 9, which was easy with the painkillers. Tonight Miles kept texting me wanting me to send money to someone on Paypal and then Abe and Laura came home from the beach, but I finally fell asleep.

It’s also been wicked hot here. Like 100 degrees, blazing, oppressive, exhausting heat. In all of this heat, Laura came home with the dogs and a 50 lb bag of dog food, so now the dogs were here too.

Saturday.

My mornings this week, after my excellent opioid fueled sleep, consisted of me waking feeling rested but with tremendous pressure in my bladder and bowels (which this week have felt like all one unified joint bipartisan pressure), and a walk down to the basement to my personal post-THD bathroom where my sitz bath and my witch hazel pads are waiting for me. And then I sit, and it hurts SO MUCH and I can’t really pee, and I definitely can’t poop. I then stand to pee and guess I’m not pooping. Except for some early success on Wednesday, accompanied by earth shattering straining, I have not pooped, even though it’s all I think about. Spoiler alert: today is going to be all about poop.

But first the farmer’s market. Have to pick up our CSA. Then home, and then pick up Miles at his friend’s house. Then get my renewal of my pain prescription. Then finally home, and the decision not to take another pain pills because MAYBE the tooth pain is lessening, and maybe I can do without the pain pills for my butt.

The day bores on, hot and still. Laura and Abe are out at a farm. Miles is home and it set to babysit. He has some emergency about sneakers for which he convinces Laura to take him to Wicker Park and lend him $400. HOW? But all this time, I have been in the BATHROOM! Pooping. With great effort. Standing. Squatting. Squatting ON the toilet. Squatting in the bath. Pushing like my life depended on it. Pushing like my poop baby had to come, that it would die if it didn’t. AND MY POOR TENDER LITTLE SURGERIED BUTTHOLE. I pooped a million times on Saturday. Watched American Honey, a 3 hour movie which took me 6 hours to watch because of poop.

And remember no pain pills!

Sunday. Today.

Same morning. Great pressure. To the basement bathroom. Actually pee and poop. (Interesting note: this week at least, it was really hard for me to fully pee while I was sitting. I’ll just leave that there.)

Then more of this week’s super high fiber diet, which is kind of my normal diet but MORE -- lots of yogurt, oatmeal, fruits, and vegetables. Pears, apples, bananas, pineapple, cherries, raspberries, blueberries, raisins.

I forgot what else I was going to say. They’re all out to dinner and I’m alone. I’ve been pooping approximately every 2-3 hours and then 20 minutes in a sitz bath and then a bath, and man, my legs have never been washed so often.

***

Part of why I don’t do these very often is that they take FOREVER. Which is approximately the date of my next post, and which definitely will not be about poop.

I didn’t even get to today’s worries, which were about mortality and blood pressure. I walked to CVS in the heat to buy a blood pressure monitor and to exercise my legs which felt heavy and bad, but didn’t match up with any of the diseases I researched on the internet that included painful legs because I didn’t have any of the other symptoms.