if you don't have anything nice to say...
Warning: this entire blog post was created using speech to text on my phone. I am unable to read it, so please forgive any typos.
Today, I like to share about my time in the hospital. Monday, the 24th, we headed up to the hospital bright and early. There were very few people scheduled for surgery that morning so they got us back right away. My PACU nurse had recently transferred from the ICU. He was used to running Central lines, and I got to be his Guinea pig/pin cushion to practice his IV skills. He did much better than the nurse in the emergency department a couple of weeks ago, so I didn't complain. I was dealing with some nausea, probably because I hadn't eaten breakfast, so they introduced me to something called a queasy. It's in aromatherapy pod that you clip to your gown to help with nausea. It has citrus, ginger, and fennel scents. It actually helped a lot, and became something I asked for multiple times during my stay. It's nice to have something that helps without side effects. They took me back initially without my husband, which really stressed him out. In the past, they haven't separated us until I went in for surgery. I made sure to ask for him as soon as possible. It sounds like when the nurse went out to call him back he startled her with how quickly he jumped up! The rest of my family rolled into the waiting room before it was time for me to go in for surgery, so I felt better knowing there was someone there to sit with my husband. Each of the doctors came back to visit with me. I stand by my initial assessment of my surgeon that he has an amazing bedside manner and truly cares for his patients. He was hopeful and encouraging. The anesthesiologist listened to all of my concerns and reassured me that he would do his best. After the anecdotal case studies I had read, my biggest concern was a balance between pain meds and nausea. The surgeon had emphasized previously how important it was not to vomit after surgery, and I have a almost phobic level aversion to it anyways, so I kept asking anybody who would sit still to emphasize the anti-nausea meds. It was a waste of breath. When the time came, they asked me if I would like something in my IV for anxiety. I hadn't thought that through ahead of time, so if you're reading this with curiosity for your own surgery, consider it. I hate having to make on the spot decisions like that. I really wanted the anti-anxiety, but I felt like it was cheating or copping out. If memory serves, my husband very kindly encouraged me to do it if I wanted to, and I remember nothing after that point.
My next, vague, memories are waking up in the ICU. It looked nothing like I expected. Yes, I watch way too many medical shows. Really, it was just a double hospital room where a nurse was constantly on duty. I have no recollection of the first 12 plus hours post-surgery, except that every time I moved my head the pain was so intense I vomited, and then the pain from vomiting was so intense I couldn't see straight. I remember grabbing hold of the bedding and willing myself to breathe through it. I would prefer to never feel that again! Later, my husband shared with me that I had given him quite a scare. Because it was all that I could do to hold myself together and breathe, there was very little left to reassure him with. Each of my family members that had spent the day sitting vigil for me took a turn coming in to see me. I'm not sure why, but my husband felt like it was important for me to acknowledge them, and so they literally screamed at me until I did so. Since there were seven of them, my poor neighbor had a miserable, loud night. It sounds like over the next day or so I had a few different roommates, but I never met or interacted with any of them. It was doing a lot for me to open my eyes and possibly sit up in bed. Prior to surgery, there was talk of having to place an EVD which would be draining in the ICU. Evidently it was unnecessary, so at least there's one less hole in my head. Each progressive step at the hospital, held its own intimidating factors for me. One of the main steps in getting out of the ICU was to have my catheter removed. I was a little concerned that it might hurt, and even more concerned that it would necessitate me getting out of bed to use the restroom. It's funny in retrospect, I have absolutely no memory of them removing the catheter. So, either it was traumatically painful and I've blocked it out, or it really was no big deal. I'm guessing it's the latter. By Tuesday evening, I had been transitioned into non-icu status, although I still resided in the icu. There just weren't any regular hospital rooms available. The first night, my husband sat up in the room chair and propped his feet on the commode to sleep. The second night, his feet were propped in the windowsill, presumably because I was using the commode. By early Wednesday, a hospital room opened up for me, and they transferred us there. You should have seen the joy in my husband's eyes when he saw his cot! It was all he could talk about for 24 hours. As soon as I was in the regular room, the staff started making mouth noises about sending me home. This, of course, terrified me. I had a giant hole in the back of my head, didn't they understand that I shouldn't be left on my own?!? It was very similar to being in the hospital giving birth to my first child. Surely, they had to know, that I had no business being on my own at home! The truth is, though, that the longer you are in the hospital the greater your risk of infection. it really does make a lot of sense to send people home as quickly as possible, but it is awfully scary. On Tuesday, my oldest son and his girlfriend came to visit me. I was very grateful that even though I was technically still in the ICU the staff allowed it. I felt very loved and seen.
I received news the day before my surgery that my grandfather had passed away. They had put him on hospice on Wednesday of the week before, letting us know that he probably had two to six weeks to live. After my sinus surgery, I was really run down, and the idea of a 6-hour round trip drive to visit him was pretty overwhelming. When I thought it through, though, I realized that anything I did before surgery was going to be so much easier than anything I did after, so even though I didn't feel up to it, we drove up to visit him on Thursday. When 2 to 6 weeks became 2 to 6 days, I was very glad that I had gone. My poor mother found herself up to her ears in obligations that week. She has been apart of a fiber arts organization for a very long time, and had somehow allowed herself to become saddled with the running of a fleece show at our spring Fair the weekend before my surgery. This was also the weekend her father ended up on hospice. And then, of course, her daughter was having brain surgery on Monday. A whole lot for anybody to have on their shoulders. On her way home from visiting with her mother and sister on Wednesday, my mom came by the hospital to visit with me. Again, I felt very loved and seen. She had so much on her plate, but she made me a priority, and that meant a lot to me. On Thursday, the " let's get you home " murmurings ramped up. I think, had my husband not been super intimidated by what that would involve, I would have gone home that day. He handled it very well, though. He worked with the nurses and the neuro team to come up with a short list of qualifiers, that I would easily be able to achieve by the next day. Also, on thursday, my dear friend Kris came by to visit me in the hospital. She is my hero, the type of person that I have always aspired to be and neve thought it possible to become. She is kindness and strength personified. She brought me a prayer plant, called a rattlesnake plant. She also brought me a card, and some nuts and chocolate. Her visit was sweet, and short. It meant a lot to me that everyday I spent in the hospital, someone came to see me.
And now, I've saved the hardest thing for last. Prior to my surgery, but after the sinus surgery, I was playing a puzzle game on my phone, when all the sudden all of the numbers doubled. 1s became 11, and 2s became 22. It only lasted for a few hours, and then settled into more of a blurriness than a double vision. I likened it to wearing 3D glasses when you were not watching a 3D movie. That was pretty scary for me. I'm an extremely visual person, and to have something so inherent to my experience of life shift so drastically, frightened me. It was the main reason why we ended up in the emergency department for 10 hours the next day. So, when I woke up after surgery with double vision, it felt like the bottom dropped out of my world. Of course, I hope at first, that it would just last a few hours like it had before. And then I hope for a few days. And now I'm beginning to lose hope. It is as if the focal points of my eyes are misaligned. One image is upright and makes sense, but there is a secondary, superimposed, image at a diagonal over top of it. If both of my eyes are uncovered, I see at least two of everything. Sometimes this can be really weird / gross. There was a nurse in the hospital who, at one point, seemed to have a double wide mouth/mask, with four eyes lined up on top of it. At other times, I would see things vertically. There would be two eyes and a nose with two eyes and a nose underneath and two mouths under those. And when the person spoke everything would move at once. It reminded me a lot of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Everything seemed ridiculous and unnatural. And, of course, nauseating. Everything I saw was dark, and spinny. I had vertigo, even when laying still. No one around me seemed to take the double vision seriously. But I felt as though my life had been inherently changed and may never be the same again. No one could tell me why I had it, or what might fix it. Maybe it would get better on its own, maybe I would need to do therapy, maybe it would never get better. Someone in the hospital procured a couple of glasses shields. They taped over a different eye on each of them, so that I could rotate. With one eye essentially blocked, the double vision became single, but it was still so intensely blurry that I could not read anything. It didn't just affect my vision, the vertigo that it caused felt like it was squeezing my brain. There was a heavy weight pressing down on my head, and it exhausted me.
Prior to surgery I had read up on recovery and tried to make myself aware of all of the things that would help me get better faster. One of these is physical movement. I've always struggled with feeling fragile after surgery, I like the slightest bump wood have me shatter. But I knew that getting up and walking around was the surest way to speed my healing. By the end of my hospital week, I was taking multiple laps around the floor everyday.
One of the things we had discussed at my pre-op was that they would be using steroids during the surgery and after to help reduce swelling in the brain. I had a terrible experience with steroids in the fall of 2021. I had received a cortisone shot in my hip that resulted in a three month long panic attack. So, the idea of bringing steroids on board, frankly scared me. But then, what about this process didn't? By the time they sent me home from the hospital, they already had me on a plan to titrate off the steroids. It's funny, though, how long it took me to recognize the symptoms of being on them. It was very much a wired and tired feeling. I wasn't able to sleep well at night because it felt like there was always an engine revving inside of me.
Probably the biggest positive memory I have of my hospital stay, was my amazing husband's face. He would look at me with this twinkle in his four to six eyes that made it seem like he was falling in love with me all over again. I don't know if it was because I had given him such a scare right after the surgery, or maybe because I was so fully dependent on him, but he made me feel like the most important person in the world. He would just sit or stand next to my bed and hold my hand. Time seemed to have very little meaning, so it may have been seconds or hours, but he would never rush away. Talk about feeling loved! And the funny thing was, I have never looked more physically unappealing in my life! My hair was wiry and frizzy. I had bruises and marks all over my face, including a rather stark, burgundy swoosh under my left eye. I'm certain I didn't smell very good either! But, somehow, I don't think he noticed.
Here's the thing: none of this is inherently all good or all bad. Yes, I am terrified that I may never be able to read again. I'm scared that my double vision and resulting vertigo will make it so I could never enjoy a cruise. I'm saddened by the idea that I may not be able to go back to being a travel agent. But, as Sister Maria was so quick to point out, when God closes a door, somewhere, He opens a window. I truly hope that all of these things resolve, but if they don't, somehow, I'll be okay.
<3
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