Decidedly Grim

Hello again! I want to thank everyone for the well-wishes I received while I was recuperating from my hysterectomy. I had the surgery on June 16th and I’m now virtually recovered – except that I’m still not allowed to lift anything, to perform vigorous exercise (as if), or to return to work (such a pity). The surgery went (in my doctor’s words) “smashingly” – but, sadly, I wasn’t able to keep the uterus because, due to my pre-cancerous condition, it had to be sliced up like a loaf of bread for detailed analysis. The pathology report came back showing various benign conditions, but no cancer. Such a waste of an organ…

I spent two days in the hospital and had a reasonably pain-free recovery (thanks to the fentanyl pump I was hooked up to), but it was hardly a peaceful environment. A man next door to me had crushed his leg in a fall from scaffolding and I quickly named him “The Moaner”. The moaner would start in softly… “oh… oh… oh… oh…” and then after a few hours would be loudly expressing his pain, “Ooooooooooh!!!!!!!!! Oooooohhhhh!!!!! Oh My God!!!!!!! Ooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!!!” I walked past him the second morning I was there and saw that his entire leg was in a cast and his foot looked like it was encased in six inches of styrofoam on all sides. I felt really bad for the guy, because it was obvious that his pain was excrutiating. (Or he was a terrible wimp. Either way, I feel bad for him.) They finally gave him a shot of morphine which quieted him down. Thank goodness… because it’s hard to heal in an environment like that!

I wanted to share one delightful brush with morbidity I had at the hospital. It happened on the second morning, after they removed the catheter and I had to attempt to go to the bathroom myself. (Which isn’t as easy as it sounds! The nurse told me that sometimes it can take up to 6 hours before you can pee after having a catheter removed.) The nurse disconnected me from the IV stand so that I could go in the bathroom unimpeded. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), she forgot to block the IV tube coming out of my arm. As I sat on the toilet, I suddenly noticed that a puddle of blood was forming at my feet. I looked over at my arm and saw that blood was streaming out of my IV onto the floor. I immediately stemmed the flow with my finger and hit the emergency assistance button. Of course, it took the nurse awhile to finally respond as I stood there in my room holding my blood in. It’s a good thing that I’m not the type to faint at the sight of my own blood or I could have been completely drained by the time the nurse arrived!

So, that was fun… but, like I said, the rest of the recovery has been uneventful. I’m glad I got the surgery over with, but I kinda feel sad now because I have no surgeries to look forward to in the near future. That is, unless my aching shoulder acts up worse than it currently is. I start physical therapy next week for a rotator cuff injury in my right arm. I saw a specialist about it last week and he actually had the gall to tell me that my “posture is horrible” and that I need to have “posture training”! So, I start that on Tuesday. I guess it’s not surprising that I’m falling apart when you consider that I’ve exceeded my life expectancy for a non-modern Homo sapiens sapiens. If it were 1850, I’d be dead several times over by now.

Anyway, I will now set about getting back to updating the blog on a regular basis. Thank you for your patience.

Sundry