The thing about hospital stays…
So here’s the thing. When in hospital they treat you so well, with all the dignity in the world, plenty of compassion and support. But let’s be real, internally you do say goodbye a bit to your own dignity.
I have now learned the same skill that people in prison learn of how to pee when you are not alone in a room. When you have a nurse there inside your private hospital bathroom waiting there to make sure you don’t pass out, or fall over trying to stand again, or even worse, if you are able to wipe all by your self, you do feel a bit like “I am now currently devoid of all shame.”
I won’t lie, it was weird. It’s odd when a woman you only met a few hours ago helps you out of bed, takes you to the bathroom, then helps you get naked, get cleaned up and then back into actual clothes. But at the same time, man there is no greater feeling then feeling clean again.
My hospital stay was only for two nights. There wasn’t any part of it I truly hated, that being said the first night when I was told I needed an injection to help ensure I didn’t have blood clots I assumed since I still had two drips in my hands it would go there. When she said it would go into my stomach there were actual tears! I’m such a massive needlephobe that I was beyond terrified.
Can I just say this now, and probably never again.
Thank God for my belly fat!!!
This is probably one of the few times I haven’t felt a needle or the fluids going into me.
Also while I was in hospital on day two I had my first attempt at food. Pureed chicken was my option for dinner and it was surprisingly good. The flavours were really lush and you get past the consistency super fast because it just reminds you that chewing is so time consuming and it’s like the work is already done for you.
I also came to find that the next morning I woke up after surgery I actually felt worse than the day before. I was more sore, had my first moments of queasiness and generally felt more worn out than I had the day of surgery. When I think back not I’m not too surprised, the amount of anesthesia I probably still had running through my body that first day it was no wonder. What also arrived on day two was the start of the severe shoulder pain and the beginnings of what I liked to refer to as my butt chronicles.
Let me explain.
When you have surgery especially around your abdominal region they pump a bunch of gas into your body to help inflate the space in which they are working. After surgery all of that gas has to go somewhere. That tends to travel up and settle around your shoulders. When you combine that with how the pain you feel in your abdominal region also tends to lead to pain transference up into the muscles around your shoulders what you get is agonizing pain. I’m talking worse than pulled muscle level brutal. So to begin with I found myself with heat packs almost permanently on my shoulders.
Uncomfortable, weighted down with heat packs and questioning my decisions.
This doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with butts so why did I call this the butt chronicles? Well, here is part two.
Surgery makes you fart…and it’s a good thing.
See, that has has to leave your body somehow so farting helps like you wouldn’t believe. It also, smells less than fabulous. Again…I apologize to my sister 😂.
And that’s the thing about hospitals, everyone is interested in every aspect of what is happening in your body. Have I had pain? Have I gotten up and moved? Have I peed? Have I had bowel movements? Do I have nausea? Do I want a cup of tea?
I didn’t mind the last one.
By the time I left hospital on Friday morning I was beyond ready to go home. It wasn’t that I was unhappy and uncomfortable but I missed the familiarity of my surroundings. I had visions of getting dressed back into normal clothes, mum wanted a wheelchair for me to be taken outside but in the end I said fuck it and walked still in my pajamas. In fact it would come to be nearly a week before I stopped living permanently in pajamas and made the leap into real person clothes again…which I kept so loose and lazy I probably still could have been considered as wearing pajamas.
For those that think so far I might have been a little bit too “real and discriptive” about things so far, be warned, there is quite a bit more of that coming soon. Things are gonna get…well…poopy…very soon, but don’t worry, I’ll give you fair warning first.
