So I had the surgery yesterday, and my babymaker no longer functions as-intended. Win.
It was surprisingly low-key, considering my anxiety.
I did find out I've lost even more weight, though.. I'm down to 108# from my usually-consistent 123#, a situation which I find quite upsetting; eating more means more pain due to my ongoing tummy problems, and not eating more means I could easily become even less healthy.. I'll have to talk to my primary care doctor about it when I call regarding depo, especially since I think I may have pinned down the cause. On the plus side, my distress over actually losing weight seems to have convinced my partner that, no, despite my jokes about "working off that meal", I'm not actually interested in losing weight, just maintaining the same size I've been since middle school (which I do usually without conscious thought. I don't go out of my way to stay the same size; I don't weigh myself or measure or anything, and most of my waistbands are elastic so I have no reference other than visual).
Anyway..
My attending nurse was also childless and had a hysterectomy, and totally understood when I said I was only getting my tubes tied because they wouldn't let me have my uterus removed. She had hers done by laproscope, just like mine, so although it was a bigger surgery, she knew what I could expect, more or less.
She was super good about my intense sarcasm, and was surprised by my unwavering bluntness (it's just who I am, and I rather like it, because nobody ever has to guess about me, and get it wrong).
She commented positively on my lack of moving even slightly, despite watching what she was doing, when she attempted the IV in my right hand, and wrist, and when I told her she was better off, despite appearances to the contrary, using my left, I didn't flinch for that, either, and she got it on the first go. My viens are strange; on the right, they are very visible and look perfect for tapping, but can almost never be hit.. On my left, they look less amazing, and are harder to see, but can be hit on the first go just about every single time (as in.. I've yet to have even folks in training miss on that side)
Then I explained that I was keeping track of my age with piercings, and had gotten a bunch through the years that I didn't keep. It all made sense. She was super apologetic about missing twice, and my response was merely "eh, I figured it would happen, but it doesn't bother me much at all".
My partner sat with me while we waited, and we watched one of the new spiderman movies from start to finish, so that was a really good way of keeping my mind off what was to come, but honestly, the IV was the worst bit of pre-surgery.
One of the other nurses gave me a hard time about my dermal anchors, even with the tops removed, and finally I was like "well, for what it's worth, I regret them, and I would take them out if that didn't require a surgery all on it's own.." She then demanded to know how they got them in, and I told her the rather unpleasant process of making 3 piercings to make a pocket, and slipping the jewelry in, letting the skin grow through the back of the anchor. I told her how long ago I got them, and that they had finally stopped, for the most part, giving me major problems, and she cooled down a bit and explained how cauterizing can lead to burns, especially with a surgery so close to them. I told her I appreciated the info, and that it was a risk I simply had to be willing to take, at this point. That seemed to be enough. There's not much I can do about something I did 5 years ago, short of, as mentioned, surgery.. the anchors need to be cut out, and the process is much worse than implanting them (that process, by the by... sucks..)
They wheeled me into the OR, and I was still awake so I was asking all sorts of questions about the equipment. They showed me a few devices that they were going to use on me, and I told them I liked that they were willing to share and explain. They responded that it's not all that often someone wants to know, beforehand, what's going on for surgery. They have this cool reflex tester deal that they put on your hand to send shocks through to make sure everything is working. They wouldn't hook it up while I was awake, which is a shame, because now I'm super curious how it feels.
Nobody got my joke about the machine that goes "BING!" from Monty Python, which was disappointing, but I asked if they were going to be rocking out to any awesome jams, and the guy in charge of the OR laughed and said "not in my OR", to which the nurses laughed and said "but as soon as he leaves the room!!!"
My mom was an RN, and worked in nearly ever field an RN can; OR, ER, prenatal, maternity, pre-op, assisted living, nursing home, the lot. She used to tell me about how they worked, and how they rocked out to music while the patient was under. She also used to comment about how much she hated the rude people, so I did my best to be entirely accommodating, even a bit helpful.
I don't really recall them injecting the anesthetic, but I recall asking what specific drug it was (as I did with everything else they put in it, because I'm curious) and we got to skip right over that boring counting stuff, because they had the perfect stuff (medical equipment and knowledge) to keep me happy and non-stressed.
I woke up in agony. They gave me a few shots of painkillers, but it didn't come close to going away.. it got better, for sure, but nothing near relief.
It was very unpleasant. The gasses they used to blow up my abdomen lingered like crazy. I still have some huge major bubbles and a ton of subsurface tiny bubbles, and they still hurt. Because of the added pressure in strange places, my back and shoulders also hurt.
When the pain subsided somewhat, they wheeled me into my recovery room where my partner was waiting for me. Then there was a boring bit while I just laid there and made him give me water every few minutes, between conversation and a lot of complaining.
While I was in recovery, my surgeon came by to check on me, let me know that the surgery went well, and said he thought I might be interested to see my clips, since I'm a strange patient. Turns out, he made me a nice, glossy, full-color copy of the pictures, and presented them to me with a flourish. I, being the strange duck that I am, was thrilled. I asked all about what I was seeing, and now I have a picture of each ovary, my Fallopian tubes, and both clips. You can't ask for more! I might frame them. Proof that I'm sterile.
They wanted me to stick around until I could use the bathroom (they apparently used a catheter), and I wanted to leave because we still had a 2.5 hour drive home, so I managed well before I needed or wanted to go, and that, too, was highly unpleasant.
The drive home sort of sucked, although I think I passed out for an hour or so, because when we got to what I thought was Fond Du Lac, we were actually in Oshkosh (30-45 min difference). Bumpy roads were painful, and I curled up in the back seat for a while trying to relocate some of the gas bubbles (something I'm very accustomed to doing with intestinal gas).
The only bad thing, so far, other than the pain.. was the bleeding. They used some sort of liquid bandage sealant stuff rather than bandages, but one of the incisions didn't close up completely, so in the car, it started oozing blood. Unpleasant. We had to stop and look for paper towel, but there wasn't any at the rest stop, so I fished an old but clean shirt out of my trunk and used that. Not ideal, but workable.
The gas pain has been bothering me since I woke up from surgery, but I found that increasing blood flow increases absorption rate of CO2 gas (the same way as muscle fatigue) so I did some exercises that didn't hurt, but would increase my heart rate slightly, as well as increase the blood flow to abdominal muscles. It seemed to help with some of it, but there's enough left that I think it will be another day or two yet, at least. I'm trying not to limit my normal activities too much, since couch-potato-ing decreases blood flow and thus increases recovery time.
I'm also trying to find a cat to sit on my lap and purr, but none of them seem to want to be that close to my blood. (I'm not forcing the matter, of course, but my invitations have been ignored thusfar)
Why would I want a cat so close? Simply, the cat's purr is special; it vibrates at a frequency that can speed up healing, which is why cats seem to survive things you'd think would kill them. The frequencies (~25 htz for the base frequency and ~50 for the first harmonic frequency) have been shown in lab settings to promote healing of bones, reduce inflammation and swelling, and reduce pain, to say nothing of the illness rates in cats being significantly lower than would be expected. It works so well that devices are being made based on the cat purr frequencies for healing bones that are having problems doing so naturally (such as old or compromised patients)
All told, I'm still glad I did it. This is a reasonably small price to pay for peace of mind. I now know, almost for certain, that I will never need to have an abortion.
And such excellent timing, too; if my partner wants to be around babies, especially now that he knows for sure we aren't having any, his niece just found out she was about 5 weeks pregnant, so that need, if it becomes a need, has an outlet. I even told him he's welcome to babysit if he wants to, which was met by the most vigorous head shake of no I've ever seen from him. It was magical.
Sorry for rambling; I'm a bit drugged up for this post. They offered me vicodin and codine, and I declined both because they never work for me (I literally cannot tell when I've taken them or haven't, and I have some skill in those matters), so they sent me home with 600MG ibuprofin and 5mg oxy/35mg acetaminophen. Today is an oxy day.
Perhaps I'll have something more to write when I'm a bit more sober. Perhaps I'll sleep all day. :p
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