Recovery

Well recovery from laproscopic surgery has been going fairly well. It's been two weeks and I don't need to take any of the pain medicine, although I do still have pain.
I don't feel quite up to snuff yet, and it's beginning to grate on me. I want to be hooping, going to my riding lessons, and taking up jogging/walking/running again. I had so much fun at the hot chocolate 5k, and would like to be able to keep up with Rubarb3point14, some day.

I feel conflicted about the incisions. Some days I don't care about them, other days I am horrified by them, and feel like my belly has been mildly disfigured.  I am going to try to make an effort to slather them in scar lotion or whatever, to try to minimize their obviousness. It isn't like I wear midriff shirts or show off my pudgy belly often, so it's not like anyone is going to see the scars regularly other than Husbeast. It still bothers me a little.
And then I feel a little sheepish about it, other people have way worse scars, mine are minimal and can be easily hidden.

But comparison like that is incredibly useless, and I hate it when other people do it. Just because someone else has a worse problem doesn't mean yours isn't valid.
Knowing other people have worse scars doesn't change the fact that I am occasionally bothered by mine. It doesn't help me deal, it just serves to make me feel bad. And I shouldn't. Having feelings about scars is legitimate. I have permanent marks where once there were none.

I also feel conflicted because I chose to have surgery, so do I have the right to whine about surgery scars? I could have lived with the cysts, they weren't malignant, and didn't hurt all the time. The surgery was technically optional. So I feel guilty for occasionally being upset about the incisions.

But aside from impatience and angst, I'm doing well.

Surgery post

So surgery happened on Friday.

I loved the PA student and anesthetist that were on my med team. They were really great. My anesthesiologist... not so much.

The Neurologist that met with me Wednesday told me that I would need to list lidocaine as a drug allergy from now on and report that it causes seizure activity.  The neurologist that I had to see because the anesthesiologist wouldn't touch me with out an okay from their department.  That same anesthesiologist rolled his eyes and said "I doubt that" when I reported it to the nurse. I had to actually say that the neurologist told me to say that it is an allergy that causes seizures, and he kinda grunted and said "Well, I guess we won't give you any."
The anesthetist and PA student both took me seriously and I think it scared the PA student a little. He waited on his anesthetist mentor before trying to start my IV. The anesthetist asked me about the allergy, and then got very serious and said I needed to be sure to let ALL of my doctors know and that I should be sure to let my OB/GYN know because lidocaine is almost ubiquitous in hospital deliveries.

The surgery went as well as could have been hoped for.  I came out of it with both ovaries, which wasn't a guarantee. There was a significant chance I could have lost the right ovary, either to bleeding or simply because it might have been so badly scarred. They removed two large blood filled cysts from the right, and apparently there was a good bit of scar tissue on my right fallopian tube and on the left ovary. The doctor told Hubs we'd need to be cautious about ectopic pregnancy, due to the scarring on the tube. I imagine I'll learn more at the post-surgery visit.

The four holes are creepy. But I suppose they are better than the carved up smiley face I might have had with out laproscopic surgery. I woke up Saturday feeling like I'd been stabbed. Which of course, I kind of had. It hurt to sit up, to pee, to move at all. I'm feeling a lot better two days out. But still pretty pitiful.

Post Surgery Belly

Medical Misadventures.

I was supposed to have surgery on Wednesday.
It was supposed to be first thing in the morning. But the surgery got bumped to later in the day for a heart transplant.  So I got to sleep in a little.
I cried in the waiting area, before they called me back to pre-op.  Pre-op is really just a bunch of bays separated by fabric curtains. It's kinda loud, with lots of monitors and machines beeping and bleeping and nurses and doctors talking. Once I got into the hospital gown and sat on the gurney/bed I cried again.
There is no real privacy, since there are no walls. I overheard the guy next to me have his surgery cancelled and he was admitted, due to complications of cancer. I also overheard him breakdown crying and talking to god. It was pretty uncomfortable.
I had to answer a bunch of questions, and then the nurse went to put in my IV and that's when things went south. She injected a little lidocaine to numb up the spot and it stung but I felt okay. She got the IV in and I remember wanting to tell her to take it out, wanting to snatch my hand away and that's it. I woke up terrified, breathing fast and surrounded by faces. My tongue hurt terribly and I was confused.
The nurses thought I'd had a seizure, but weren't sure and anesthesia wouldn't go forward with out a neurology consult saying it was okay to proceed.
I had an EEG done and my surgery was canceled since it would take too long for neuro to get anyone down there. Luckily for me, we were able to reschedule it for first thing Friday morning.
The neuro work up was really weird. Lots of questions, whacking with a reflex mallet, tuning fork pokes, and being stuck with a pin.  The neurologist decided that even though the EEG was inconclusive, the description the nurse gave and my own descriptions that I had had a seizure brought on by the lidocaine and that I should report it as a drug allergy, that it causes seizure activity for me.

We will see tomorrow if I actually have surgery.

crushing injuries

I accidentally crushed the fingers of my right hand yesterday at work.  Everything is still mostly in working order and nothing is broken, but it's pretty uncomfortable.

My middle and ring finger bore the brunt of what is at least a thirty pound metal panel, slamming down on my hand. Between my knuckles and the first joint is where the most damage was, a cut from where the ring I was wearing dug into my skin and significant bruising. Trying to pull my hand out from under the panel shattered the acrylic on the fingernails of those two fingers and made the ring finger bleed and bruise under the nail.

The hand is feeling better today but my wrist and forearm are slightly sore along with the fingers. I can't touch the tops of the two worst affected fingers because they are painful to the touch, but they aren't pulsing any more so that's good.

Shen Yun

Dad and I went to the Shen Yun performance at the Cobb Energy Center Saturday.
It was really spectacular. The skills of the dancers, Orchestra, costumers and choreographers were so impressive. Some of the parts that stood out were:

• The dancers were so graceful and skilled that when one dancer fell during an acrobatics run, it took a moment to realize it wasn't intentional.
• The attention to costuming detail was both impressive and odd. The costumes were beautiful, but I did think a few times that they "looked like they were made in China." I think if we had been in a further row back, I might not have noticed. I loved the silk sleeves, called water sleeves, the Mongolian costumes little leaf shaped sequins that helped illustrate the shoulder shimmies that are part of that dance. The phoenix faerie dance had gorgeous dark blue skirts, with rhinestones to illustrate the night sky, and orange silk scarves over the shoulders, so that when the dancers spun in barrel rolls you got the impression of fire streaming through the sky.
• The acrobatics present in traditional Chinese dance are impressive. The amounts of flips, aerial round offs and other feasts were surprising and beautiful with the skirts the women were costumed in. The acrobatics also made for beautiful fight scenes.
• The Chinese and English spoken before each scene, introducing the work and a little about it.
• The spinning handkerchiefs in the welcoming of spring piece.

I hope to make it a semi-regular event. Maybe not every year, even though they change it every year.

Dad bought me a DVD that is supposed to be like a dance class I guess. I haven't watched it yet. I hope it is, I'd like to see what can be incorporated into my hoop dance.

Workplace adventures

So, some days crazy things happen.

Today I had a small bird land on my head in pitch darkness and get tangled in my hair. I only shrieked a little.  Just a little.

Somehow, at some point yesterday or this morning one aviary was raised slightly and a large number of its inhabitants escaped under the wall.  It was taking a really long time to catch them, which is super stressful and can kill these guys. So I and the other bird husbandry specialist in the facility went in to finish up really quickly.

To catch these guys, you turn off the lights and use a red flashlight to locate and net them. Then you clasp them in your hand and release them back in the aviary.  Sometimes they fly in the dark as you go to catch them. I was mentioning to my catch partner that I couldn't see the bird I'd just tried to catch, when I realized something was in my hair. And as any person does when they realize that there is something living tangled in their hair, I freaked right out. But only a little. I realized almost as soon as I realized the bird was there that I needed to remain calm.

I actually almost caught him directly off my head, but couldn't get a close enough grasp on him.