Of course I didn't sleep a lot the night before surgery. I have vague recollections of television and the hospital's movie channel. There were infomercials, too. I don't know if they gave me a sedative, maybe they did.
Marcie and Erich arrived before 4 on March 25. They apparently had to speak to security guards, as there aren't a lot of people around the hospital at that time of the morning. Apparently there's no way to get a parking stub, either... these were all small parts of the chit chat that morning. Erich is mellow. And sweet, and a typically weird 18 year old. (He's 19 now.) And sweet to give up a day of spring break to be with his mom.
The people (hospital assistants? OR staff? aliens?) arrived to transport me to surgery a little after 4:30. I was able to transfer myself to the guerney (sp?) to be rolled into the bowels of the hospital. I made sure that Marcie had all of my things (the five things that I had brought with me, and my wallet and phone...) and suggested that they go for coffee for awhile before going to the waiting room. Erich squeezed my hand, Marcie kissed my forehead.
I know I talked to my drivers on the way to the OR. I recall getting into the elevator. The UWMC is a sprawling facility which has been addended and remodeled about a billion times; I have no concept (even with my great sense of space and direction) of where, exactly, the operating rooms are. Somewhere Below.
Pre-Op is like a stable. Privacy curtains about 3/4 the length of each bed, and I think there may be 12 - 16 spots in the room for patients? (Hard to see from the horizontal.) That time of morning is shift change, so there was a low hum of passing conversation about how busy the last shift was, what's lined up for the day, who was going out for breakfast after work, what surgeons were on call, etc. I'm pretty sure families aren't allowed in there, but it seems to me that I saw the family come in with another patient. I was staring at the ceiling for the most part, though.
It was there that I got a second IV inserted. I met the anesthesiologist... briefly at first, enough time for us to establish our common German heritage (mine by name, his by thick thick thick accent), then he wandered off to order drugs. By the time he came back he re-introduced himself and his associate as my soon-to-be-best friends. I said in a mockery of complete and utter shock "what? I said no anesthesia! we are going to do this with a bottle of scotch and a rag to bite on!" Well. I thought it was funny at the time, and I think the dr. laughed. The nurses did.
I have been asked if I was scared. Or worried. Or excited. I have to say none of the above. It's hard to describe. The surreality of the surroundings impacted my ability to think beyond my breathing. The magnitude of what was about to happen hadn't really sunk in (I'm not so sure it has even yet). Having had abdominal surgery in the past, I knew fairly well what I was in for in terms of recovery pain. And beyond that, well, I believed the staff would do their jobs well. There wasn't any way to worry about prior decisions, or fret about the future. I just had to be.
The last think I remember is being wheeled toward the ER, with the warning that it might be cold and bright in the room. I was warm, so I think I said something about not being worried about that. There was music on. In the back corner on my left side there was a team of doctors seated on stools at a table working on the graft. And then I shut my eyes.
Somehow, I also remember in a lull of the activity that I did have the presence of mind to breathe deeply. When I'm on a heart/oxygen monitor I like to play with the screen and see if I can slow my heart rate and make the blips do different things. Breathing helps that. In the space of that breathing I also concentrated on making a welcoming place for my new liver. And being calm.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
05.04.09
Today is a work at home day.
I see how the office thing, the going back to my world of environmental reviews and permits and meetings and customer service, the embroilment in the drama of the workplace... can be distracting from the real work of my life.
This time of working only part time is really aimed at maintaining the balance. The ability to stay calm when buttons are pushed, to remind myself to get up from a long (if interesting) document to get a nutritious lunch, to break for a walk in the middle of the day, to sleep when I need to sleep.
I want to keep up with writing. A lot of it still goes on in my head, mostly because I let other things push it out of my daily timeline. But in so many ways it's my sanity.
My days have been getting fuller. (Ick. More full?) It's been since at least last Tuesday that I had a long stretch of time when I thought "what will I do next" and Tuesday it's just because I was exhausted. Social events Thursday on were good for me. I am a bit wary of being too close to other people and am not all that excited about restaurant food or party food, but that will come back to me. I hope people around me understand a little when I sit at the back of the room, or don't take them up on the offer of the mayonnaisy salad that's been sitting out for 3 hours, or... :-)
Maybe I'll just take it up permanently as an affectation. I needed something to make me more weird. Weirder. (Now that word I like.)
I see how the office thing, the going back to my world of environmental reviews and permits and meetings and customer service, the embroilment in the drama of the workplace... can be distracting from the real work of my life.
This time of working only part time is really aimed at maintaining the balance. The ability to stay calm when buttons are pushed, to remind myself to get up from a long (if interesting) document to get a nutritious lunch, to break for a walk in the middle of the day, to sleep when I need to sleep.
I want to keep up with writing. A lot of it still goes on in my head, mostly because I let other things push it out of my daily timeline. But in so many ways it's my sanity.
My days have been getting fuller. (Ick. More full?) It's been since at least last Tuesday that I had a long stretch of time when I thought "what will I do next" and Tuesday it's just because I was exhausted. Social events Thursday on were good for me. I am a bit wary of being too close to other people and am not all that excited about restaurant food or party food, but that will come back to me. I hope people around me understand a little when I sit at the back of the room, or don't take them up on the offer of the mayonnaisy salad that's been sitting out for 3 hours, or... :-)
Maybe I'll just take it up permanently as an affectation. I needed something to make me more weird. Weirder. (Now that word I like.)
Tacoma
I moved to Tacoma the August before I turned 17.
Relocation to college, officially moving out of the house (though my parents had really moved out before me), and becoming a Northwesterner was quite a production in my family. Kathy hadn't worked all summer, I had worked at Rax Roast Beef (finally being old enough to work legally) and our days had consisted of soaps, suntanning, and me working swing shift and bringing home the milkshake machine-cleaning to the dog...
Mom and Dad had lived in Yellowstone all summer, so moving entailed a van, a trailer, two cars, and three different routes. My stuff was packed into the cars and lord help me but I can't remember how all the other household stuff made it to Washington. (My parents sold the house when I started college.)
Priorities for me were 1. orientation and 2. finding a doctor. My doc in Utah referred me to Dr. W, who was to be my doc for the next 20 years. (20! And yet at my last visit I encountered another teary-eyed woman who had been to the office for 24.) With Dr. W came a lot of really really bad jokes, opportunities to teen-sit and house-sit, a woolly golden retriever (who was not leash trained... my favorite was the day Kathy and I had to chase him all over Point Defiance), a Sunset-worthy acoustically perfect house, and a Volvo station wagon (thus starting my love affair with boxy cars). I was spoiled.
My typical visit with Dr. W -- no kidding -- was 5 minutes of how I am doing and then 10 minutes about life, family, travel, and sometimes even politics (I think we disagree). So, given 20 years at four times a year for 15 minutes each, that's approximately 20 hours total. Throw in the odd procedure (and for GIs they are truly odd procedures) and I've spent the equivalent of 6 dinner parties with Dr. W. Add in the interaction surrounding house-sitting and social gathering, and we'll call it 10 dinner parties.
How can someone with so little contact have so much influence? I don't know. I do know that not every doctor is for every patient, and vice versa. There's a lot to be said for bedside manner (no matter whether one is in the bed or out of it), but sometimes personalities just mesh okay. I have had other friends who have seen Dr. W (the world is full of people with GERD and IBS and such) who do not care so much for him as I do. And, by extension (and subsequently of their own accord) his family.
I guess even intermittent contacts have had profound impacts on my life... my hair dresser, my dentist, my financial advisor, people I knew when...,
Relocation to college, officially moving out of the house (though my parents had really moved out before me), and becoming a Northwesterner was quite a production in my family. Kathy hadn't worked all summer, I had worked at Rax Roast Beef (finally being old enough to work legally) and our days had consisted of soaps, suntanning, and me working swing shift and bringing home the milkshake machine-cleaning to the dog...
Mom and Dad had lived in Yellowstone all summer, so moving entailed a van, a trailer, two cars, and three different routes. My stuff was packed into the cars and lord help me but I can't remember how all the other household stuff made it to Washington. (My parents sold the house when I started college.)
Priorities for me were 1. orientation and 2. finding a doctor. My doc in Utah referred me to Dr. W, who was to be my doc for the next 20 years. (20! And yet at my last visit I encountered another teary-eyed woman who had been to the office for 24.) With Dr. W came a lot of really really bad jokes, opportunities to teen-sit and house-sit, a woolly golden retriever (who was not leash trained... my favorite was the day Kathy and I had to chase him all over Point Defiance), a Sunset-worthy acoustically perfect house, and a Volvo station wagon (thus starting my love affair with boxy cars). I was spoiled.
My typical visit with Dr. W -- no kidding -- was 5 minutes of how I am doing and then 10 minutes about life, family, travel, and sometimes even politics (I think we disagree). So, given 20 years at four times a year for 15 minutes each, that's approximately 20 hours total. Throw in the odd procedure (and for GIs they are truly odd procedures) and I've spent the equivalent of 6 dinner parties with Dr. W. Add in the interaction surrounding house-sitting and social gathering, and we'll call it 10 dinner parties.
How can someone with so little contact have so much influence? I don't know. I do know that not every doctor is for every patient, and vice versa. There's a lot to be said for bedside manner (no matter whether one is in the bed or out of it), but sometimes personalities just mesh okay. I have had other friends who have seen Dr. W (the world is full of people with GERD and IBS and such) who do not care so much for him as I do. And, by extension (and subsequently of their own accord) his family.
I guess even intermittent contacts have had profound impacts on my life... my hair dresser, my dentist, my financial advisor, people I knew when...,
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