Just Breathe

A month and a half ago I worked late, arriving home around 1:30 AM.  I lay down for a while, reading to wind down so that I could go to sleep.  Rolling from my right side onto my back,  I suddenly felt a numbness in my abdomen, kind of like when your hand goes numb but inside my upper right side.  After the numbness wore off about fifteen minutes later, I felt a dull aching.  Not wanting to push my luck, I set up an appointment with a doctor at my clinic for a couple of days later.

To make a long story short, since that time I have seen two doctors and one nurse practitioner at my clinic, a GI specialist twice (including upper and lower endoscopies), had a nuclear HIDA scan and seen a surgeon.  Here is what has been found, more or less in chronological order:

Prediabetes
Anemia
Vitamin D Deficiency
Chronic Cholecystitis
Biliary Gastric Reflux
LA Grade B reflux esophagitis
Chronic Gastritis
Hemorrhoids
Hiatus Hernia

In addition to the upper right abdominal pain and numbness in my gallbladder, I have had some as yet unidentified pain in my right and left sides as well as some upper left abdominal numbness and pain.  Woof.

For the prediabetes I have worked on cutting back my sugar intake and increasing my physical activity (though this was curtailed by my abdominal pain).  For the iron deficiency anemia, possibly caused by the esophagitis and gastritis, I began taking Iron supplements--what a difference!  I feel like my brain is firing on all cylinders again, or at least much much closer to it.  For the gastritis and esophagitis I am taking omeprazole, and for the hernia, well, I have a follow up with my GI specialist scheduled.

For the chronic cholecystitis, we made the decision to get my gallbladder out.  As I had been experiencing increasing pain and discomfort, and have a presentation scheduled for early October that I wanted to be recovered for, we scheduled the surgery for Monday, September 8th.  My dad accompanied me to the hospital and, fortunately, stayed through the surgery.  I liked my surgical team-they all had a sense of humor, and got along well with each other while being very professional in their interactions with me and each other.

While the surgery went well, it got rocky afterwards.  I remember waking in recovery in pain, and was given some demerol.  While it did temper the pain, it was still intense enough that they gave me a second shot.  During this time I made a conscious effort to wake up, wanting to be aware of everything as much as possible.  I vaguely remember getting moved to a different room, and being told that I didn't need oxygen anymore.  I had been talkative and my oxygen levels had been reading well.  I took off the oxygen line as the nurse had already turned off the oxygen.  I remember the nurse leaving and my dad mentioning that he was going to go to the pharmacy to pick up my post-surgery meds (bear in mind that these memories are rather fuzzy, as I had been under anesthesia and was now on some very strong pain killers).  Though I had been trying not to, I fell asleep again pretty immediately.

I woke up some time later to anxious voices and a full oxygen mask on.  My dad had returned from a long wait at the pharmacy to find me unconscious, absolutely white and barely breathing.  He tried to wake me, and called the nurse who arrived a couple of minutes later.  After both failed to wake me, they made efforts to resuscitate me and increase my oxygen level, which had dropped to 33 (safe is 90).  It took some time but eventually I came around, very lethargic and with a major ringing in my ears, which fortunately faded as my oxygen level came up.  I continued to fade in and out, and the decision was made to admit me to the hospital for the night.  My mom had come by this point, and she is the one that accompanied to  my room.

What followed was a very rough night-while I mostly did ok after being moved to my own room, I remained on oxygen all night.  Mom stayed with me until sometime between nine and ten, at which point we both agreed it was ok for her to go home and get some rest.  For myself, I don't know that I had more than fifteen minutes or so of sleep at a time.  Between the nurses checking on me, the post-op pain, the need to use the restroom, I'm glad that I wasn't sent home.  At one point, trying to avoid a migraine due to a very stiff neck, I raised my bed and became nauseous--a state I definitely didn't appreciate given the now increasing pain at the surgical sight.  I tried to breathe to temper the nausea but only succeeded in making myself hyperventilate--ouch!  I was crying and couldn't get control.  I was given some anti-nausea and pain meds through my IV, and asked for my phone and kindle to distract me.  After the nurses left the room I turned on my phone and started playing the music in my "spiritual" playlist, a way to connect with my Heavenly Father.  I ended up starting to sing along with the songs, starting with "I Know that My Redeemer Lives", a beautiful rendition and a very true statement in one.  I ended up singing for almost an hour, until I was able to sing normally.  Even better than normally actually, as I was singing in soprano ranges that I don't normally hit all that well any longer.

By that time I had calmed down, got my breathing under control, the pain and nausea were taken care of, and I was (both fortunately and unfortunately) well hydrated.  Though I did have to get up at least three times over the next couple of hours to relieve myself (ouch!), I believe that marks the turning point.  I steadily got better over the rest of the morning, decreasing iv meds and coming off continuous oxygen (though when I started dozing I had to go back on for a time, I eventually had it off for over six hours).  I was finally ok to come home, though in conversation with my surgeon we discussed and agreed to having an oxygen machine delivered to my house for use at night, since my level was still dropping if I started dozing off.

During the course of the day, dad had come and spent several hours with me.  He helped me pass the time, got me three different set of earbuds from the gift shop (my favorite set has a squirrel on one earbud and an acorn on the other), and some gorgeous white, purple and pink flowers in a very cute mug with Thumper (from Bambi) on it.  He eventually had to leave for an appointment, after which mom joined me back at the hospital.  After dinner I came home, hanging out in my living room for a couple of hours until the oxygen machine was delivered.  Once mom and I had it all set up in my room I went to bed.  I slept soundly for an amazing twelve hours, waking only once when mom checked on me and not getting up until after dad checked on me.  I am so glad to be home :)