Surgery Update

My surgery day has come and gone. I am at home, and trying to just relax and recover. My husband has been great about taking on tasks I can’t do such as lifting Evie right now. I’m now stashing some diapers downstairs so I can diaper changes on the ground, and not having to worry about needing to lift her up onto the change table.

The surgery went well, so I’m told. I was really frustrated the days before the surgery because I had been told to call for my surgery time on a certain day, and kept getting told to call the next day because they didn’t have it. I ended up not getting my surgery time/arrival to hospital time until the evening before. I was so glad my arrival time was a bit later so I could still have dinner that evening!

I had several friend’s and family members all offer to help in any way they could, and we were so thankful for that. We ended up dropping Evie off at my parents where she was watched by my Mom for the day. We brought the packnplay over there, and set it up for nap time. Then it was off to the hospital.

Everything went really smoothly compared to my wait time for my nose surgery, where I was waiting hours to get into the operating room. This time I was only waiting a little over an hour before they where wheeling me away, and I had to say “see you later” to Jason. It was also thanks to there being someone who didn’t show up for their surgery, so everything was ahead of schedule.

The doctor confirmed which side the surgery was happening on by giving me a Harry Potter scar squiggle on my shoulder. Since the mass they were removing was so large, 6cm by 7cm (basically the size of a lemon the doctor said) the cut needed to remove it would also be about that long. The anesthesiologist was hilarious, and while putting me under told me to think of Hawaii and as he started to describe the beach I realized everything was going blurry so I said “see ya later” and that was it. The surgery was slated to last 45 minutes at most. I woke up in another room where the nurses checked on my bandages and applied a few more because I was having some “oozing” (by the way that is so not a word you want to hear after surgery… blah!). Then it was back to the day surgery out patient area to wait a bit longer before they would let me go home. Jason got to join me there again. The nurses here were great too. They brought me apple juice and a cookie, and after my IV was taken out and I started to feel some pain and a bit nauseous they got me pain meds and a gingerale right away.

I was sent home with this “lovely” purple and pink floral tensor bandage thing, that is basically holding me tight so fluids wont build up in the now hole in my chest. I have to wear it for a week. I’m not in too much discomfort, but I was also given a prescription for pain meds that I can take when needed. The day after surgery was much worse. I felt a lot of pain in my whole upper body. It was so odd, but Jason and my sister kindly reminded me that I was probably man handled during the surgery to get the mass out. I have to wait two days before I can have a shower, and remove the bandages. So looking forward to that!

For now, I sit and relax. I’m allowed to go walking, just no running an Ironman any time time soon, and in a week or two I can slowly get back into my workout routine again. I have a check up with the doctor as well in two weeks, and hopefully I will also have the result then to confirm what exactly the mass was. Thank you so much everyone for your kind words, thoughts, prayers, and all of the text messages. I am so thankful for all of your support during this time!