Holy mother of pearl
I am A-STOUNDED how the human body can bounce back. I don't know if I'm breaching any form of etiquette here, but those first days or so of "lost" days ... they weren't LOST ... I have NEVER felt SO miserable in my life ... I couldn't even IMAGINE feeling so miserable. I had nausea to the en'th degree. Constant and uncontrollable until finally falling asleep sometime Friday night and waking Sat morning. They stopped the pain med and just kept feeding me anti-nausea, but it had to run itself out of my system I guess. Fortunately the pain was not noticeable ... I was too busy wanting to die from the wretching.
AHHH!!! The things we can LAUGH about now!!
I don't know how long I will last in this post, as I had some bad pain when I woke this a.m. and doubled up on the Vicodin, so I'm still pretty spacey.
Short version ...
Surg went exceptionally well per the docs on Thurs a.m. - only taking about 3-1/2 hrs. Got it all, no involvement whatsoever with the facial. I believe the tumor was a small 1.4cm. Both Drs. Battista and Kazan are as EXCELLENT as I anticipated. They visited early daily and were very reassuring.
[skip to feeling like a human being again ... Saturday morning]
Moved out of Neuro ICU. Double vision. Annoying but no big deal. Did I mention I was no longer nauseated??
Sunday - double vision gone and now only those little twitchy eye movements. Again, annoying, but knew I was rebounding.
Pain was incredibly minimal during all this time, but now started to increase because of the tightness of the bandage. Dr. B was due in later on Sunday to remove it. I had to add tylenol to the push pain, which helped, but was much relieved when he showed up at the door with a pair of scissors.
We talked about at-home pain management and I was taken off the IV pain so that I could test which option I would tolerate best at home ... Darvocet or Vicodin. I started having significant pain about 930p and took the Darvocet. That was not successful and after a long bout of back and forth with the nurses' button, the nurses aide, and finally the nurse, I went back on the IV pain. If there was any bump in the road, this was it, as when I explained that I wanted to go back on the IV (I believe it was now hovering around 1am), the nurse suggested it might delay my expected release the following morning
Since this was not what Dr. B mentioned, I repeated to her that we were testing the oral meds, with the option of going back on IV if necessary (without ANY delay in discharge), she agreed
and I was comfy again in short order.
My discharge was brilliantly handled by Ana first thing Monday morning and I was back IN MY HOUSE by 9AM !! (the hospital is not far)The nurses I remember were Linda, Mary Kay and Ana. OUTSTANDING!! Attentive, compassionate and kind, with the warmest senses of humor.
My improvement is just as Dr. Battista indicated - noticeable each and every day for this first week home
... to be continued ....
