The recovery process has been more painful and prolonged than I expected, but not outside of what’s usual. I’m just impatient to get back to “normal.”
I’ve had to sleep on the couch since getting home last Wednesday night due to the catheter. What a major hassle that’s been.
Pain has a way of capturing your complete and undivided attention like few other things in life. I have six small incisions, mostly an inch long, stretching from one hip to the other. But there’s a three inch one on the right side of my stomach that’s causing all the problems. Which is why I haven’t written in awhile. I’ve struggled to even read for any length of time. Here I thought I’d catch-up on work and pleasure reading, but that hasn’t happened in a week. But I’ve finally turned the corner a bit and here I am writing.
On the day of the surgery I was in the pre-op area around 6am being prepped – blood samples, IVs started, etc. When they first brought in the special surgical gown and socks I was pleasantly surprised to see that the socks were a vibrant purple, the same shade Sheila liked, and the gown was a purplish/lavender. What better clue that she was there to watch over me?! Between Dr. Salem, and being covered in purple, I knew the surgery would be a success.
When they wheeled me into the OR a little after 7:10am, the first thing I saw was the robot. It was smaller than I thought it would be, but I was struck by the number of “arms” it had – five. I didn’t focus too much on it as I wanted to check-out the rest of the room. The only time I had been in ORs before was as a field engineer servicing “C’ Arms, x-ray machines used for hip surgery. So this was a new experience being on “the other side.”
After they moved me to the operating table, the anesthesiologist, Dr. Todd Austin, (a young Doogie Howzer), came around to my left side and said, as he injected something into the IV, “it’s time to get the joy juice started.” That’s the last thing I remember until I sort of woke up in Recovery three hours later.
I stayed in Recovery for almost 4 hours because I was having a bit of trouble coming out of the anesthesia, and the pain was intense. They finally moved me later that afternoon and got the pain under control that night with a combination of morphine and valium.
Because of excessive bleeding in my abdominal cavity they had to put a vacuum drain in my side. Having that slowly pulled out on Wednesday was the worse, short term pain I had experienced. But it passed within a few minutes.
Steve, Joni, Gordon, and Sandra came by and visited over the three days. More often than not I was sleeping, or incoherent – who knows what I muttered – so Steve spent a lot of quiet time.
And the hospital was really, really strict about visitors. They apparently had 28 cases of H1N1 brought in by visitors, so they understandably greatly limited access.
I got the pathology report on Friday. Looks like they got it all. The lymph nodes came back clean and by all appearances the cancer remained within the prostate “vessel.” So I have no follow-up treatment after I recover from the surgery – no chemo, no radiation. Just blood tests every three months to see if any rogue cancer cells broke off and are lodged elsewhere. Very unlikely, but they have to check.
So hopefully by the end of the week I’ll be more painfree and the “equipment” will be well on its way to recovery.
Thanks again for all the calls and emails.