Men should not read this post
Hello all, on this fine day of recovery. As the title of today's blog implies: men should stop reading here. This blog will be dedicated to: the extraordinary time that I had while at Women's Hospital yesterday; my fallopian tubes; my period; my pubic hair; and endometriosis. Seriously, if you're a guy and you're still reading this, you secretly want to be a woman.
Alright, yesterday Michael drove me to Women's Hospital around 10:30 for my tubal ligation. I could tell he was just itching to get out of there the minute we arrived, but I told him in no uncertain terms that he would stay, and he would grin and smile and make small talk, right up until they told him he had to go. Unfortunately that was within about half an hour. Okay, so he didn't get to suffer nearly as much as I would've liked.
I was led into a day suite which I thought, as the name kind of implies, meant I would get to lounge around, get a mani and pedi and have a glass or two of chardonnay. This was not the case. I instead was told to put all my clothes into a plastic bag and given two hospital gowns to put on (the first with the opening at the back, the second with the opening at the front). As there were three other people in this "suite" with me, I hissed at the nurse, "I'm having my period". I assumed that she would simply tell me to leave my panties on. But no. Hospitals have panties too. Actually, panties are things that you buy at Sears and can sometimes look pretty and make you feel sexy. These things were like a mixture of cheese cloth and fishnet with two holes randomly placed in them, and some elastic. I swear to god they were one size fits all. And then I got to use a hospital sanitary napkin. It was approximately three feet long. At least I got to wrestle with it in the bathroom. Then they weighed and measured me and the nurse said "well aren't you a small one", which made me wonder if they were going to throw me back or something. I returned to my bed and eventually another nurse came around, asked a bunch of questions and then put in an IV. I guess I should say here that I've never had any surgery of any kind, been put under, or had an IV. I immediately stopped using my left arm once the IV was in and taped to it. I just kept looking at the drip, following the tube down to my arm and remembering there was a needle inserted into my vein and that movement of the arm was likely bad. Then the nurse came around to look at my abdomen and discerned that I needed a shave (after struggling to push the all-encompassing cheese cloth down over my hipbones). I think it was at about this time that I really stopped caring or having any allusions of dignity. I also felt badly for the nurse, because no matter how bad my day at work is, I never have to shave anyone's pubic hair. Though I have attempted to a couple of times. Then I got to clean out my belly button with rubbing alcohol. I was a little concerned, they'll trim my pubic hair but won't clean my belly button? The service was a little inconsistent. Then I got to take 3 Tylenol, an antacid and a couple of other pills all at once with about two tablespoons of water. I managed to do it, so I was pretty proud of myself. Then the nurse brought me some magazines and I basically read and stared at the ceiling for over an hour.
After a while an older, angrier nurse came and asked me more questions. Then went away. Then came back and said "do you want to use the washroom now?" to which I figured now was as good a time as ever. This involved hooking my IV up to a stand on wheels, which of course terrified me because I had to walk with it and, draped in my billowing hospital gown, I was sure I was going to catch it on something and rip it out of my arm. Yeah, me in my cheese cloth panties, two hospital gowns and and IV bag in a little hospital washroom, trying to tinkle one last time was brilliant. I came out and then got to take my IV bag for a walk, to sit and wait for my surgeon near the surgery room. Another nurse came over (I believe she was the one that would administer the anesthetic) and we chatted about being put out. Everyone seemed surprised that this was my first time (do I look like someone that gets operated on a lot??), and she said that the anesthetic was no big deal and that she had heard if you thought of a nice place while you were going under, that you might actually go there while you were out. Shortly thereafter my surgeon came into the hospital, shook my hand (which I thought was a good precursor to the fact that he would know me inside and out within the next half hour) and went to get scrubbed in. The nice nurse came and took my IV bag and started to lead me into the operating room. She said, "do you know where you're going?" to which I paused and said, "into surgery?". Evidently she was asking if I had determined what locale I was going to fixate on as I was going under. I'm a dummy.
Alright, this is the total best part of the whole day. There was a female resident or something sitting in a chair in the operating room, so I'm like hey, how's it going. Then they took off the outside robe (so now I was in one robe with the opening at the back - which was not closed) and then said I had to step out of my sexy panties. I said I was having my period and they said, "we'll take care of it". That was it: "we'll take care of it". How? How will you take care of it? That's what the three foot long sanitary napkin was doing. What are you going to do? So I am stripped of my panties and gigantic pad and I'm like, yeah, this is super. I am so having a good, happy time right now. Then I sit my bare ass down on the operating table and they help me get situated and put heart monitors on my chest, my finger, and hook me up to a blood pressure machine. Then a couple more people come in. This guy, who is not my doctor, says hey. They start discussing that I am healthy, haven't had surgery and have no allergies. He asks if there is anything that he should know. Do these people not communicate with one another? I said, "Uh, I have hypoglycemia?". Upon hearing this he kind of panics. One of the nurses asks what the symptoms are. I say, "well, I get kind of dizzy and faint and then I pass out". I clearly remember noting this on the medical forms. He kind of starts flailing around and asking people questions about my blood sugar levels, and I never heard anyone answer him, so now I think I'm going to die. Oh, and my little cap was rolling down my forhead and fitting itself snugly around my head via my EYES but because they had me all tucked in I couldn't move my arms so I had to yelp for help. They pushed it back up. The lady nurse says, "so these symptoms happen when you don't eat for some time, right?" to which I say "yes, I don't just randomly pass out" and they all laugh, ha ha the patient said a funny. All the while I'm thinking please let there be glucose in the drip because it's now 12:30 and I haven't eaten for over 12 hours.
Then they put oxygen over my nose and mouth and tell me to breath deeply, which I do, all the while listening to the beeping of all my vitals. I saw someone else injecting something into my IV bag and thought "this is it! This is where the FBI takes me out for all my anti-Bush rhetoric!", but the nurse says, "you're going to start to feel a little drowsy" and that was the last damn thing I heard.
No recollection of my dreams or anything.
Next few memories pretty groggy. People were buzzing around asking me questions and I felt awful. My throat was totally raw and I was phlemgy. The lights hurt my eyes. People were asking me to check my teeth, to see if they were chipped. Why would my teeth be chipped? Then I think my surgeon (?) said they had discovered I had endometriosis (this blog is too long, google it) and had done some work to fix it. I was like come on! I can't talk, I can barely open my eyes and I have no idea what's going on, give me a frickin' bone here. I kept on telling myself to wake up, to open my eyes and to try and get my mouth working properly, because all these people were asking me questions and telling me things, but I just wanted to go back to sleep.
Somehow I got back to the day suite where I had been before and they asked if someone was picking me up. I said, yes, Michael was. He was supposed to be waiting on the bench outside at 2pm. Of course he said that they told him 2:30, but I was there when they told him what time and it was 2pm. My surgery was at 12:30, he was to be there at 2pm. So of course they can't find him. That's cool. Cause there was still more fun to be had until he got there. Yes.
I'm still a bit groggy on the details, but I did have to go back into the washroom to try and fumble my way into another pair of scrunchy, mesh panties and finagle a three foot pad into them. With the IV still. Having just woken up from surgery. Yup, not feeling too hot. So I manage this, and then I hear the nurse directing Michael into my little cubicle area. I emerge, victorious, from the washroom, with my friend the IV stand trailing behind me. Michael looks at me, doesn't say much. I sit back on the bed and the nurse removes my IV, which apparently grosses Michael out. Oh, it was about to get so, so much worse for him. We discuss my teeth some more. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but someone thought they had chipped my tooth when they were doing something - possibly putting a breathing tube down my throat? - but my teeth were all fine. Having something stuck down my throat would explain why, when I woke up, I felt like I had had something stuck down my throat, but my mom says I'm crazy. She says that all the time. The nurse brings my clothes and closes the drapes so I can put on my civvies. I take off my hospital gown and my stomach, abdomen and the tops of my legs are bright yellow, covered in sticky iodine. That, plus I have a huge patch over my belly button and a couple of bloody incisions covered in clear tape at the top of my (now freshly shaved) pubis. Michael just sits there, trying to be positive and enjoy my funtime panties and elephant sanitary pad. He says, "I'll bring the car around", to which I say "no, I'd like to walk a bit".
I go home, have a nap. Michael tells me I look great. I don't feel so great.
Today Michael went to work and I go to wander around Kerrisdale. I run into my very good friend outside her work. I'm wearing sweat pants, a baggy shirt and huge sunglasses. I am walking very slowly because I'm in some discomfort. My friend looks great, tanned, has just had her hair highlighted and it looks magnificent. I tell her this. I say "cause I know you're looking at me and thinking, there's a picture of health" to which she says "you look like... well, you look like someone that's just had surgery". This is true. I tell her that somehow, between my operation yesterday and today I have gained eight pounds and my stomach is sticking out (further than usual). She has had surgery a couple of times and tells me this is normal and then laughs, and says never mind. But then she comes out with it "unless they left something that weighs eight pounds inside you". We both laugh. I shuffle home.
Alright, yesterday Michael drove me to Women's Hospital around 10:30 for my tubal ligation. I could tell he was just itching to get out of there the minute we arrived, but I told him in no uncertain terms that he would stay, and he would grin and smile and make small talk, right up until they told him he had to go. Unfortunately that was within about half an hour. Okay, so he didn't get to suffer nearly as much as I would've liked.
I was led into a day suite which I thought, as the name kind of implies, meant I would get to lounge around, get a mani and pedi and have a glass or two of chardonnay. This was not the case. I instead was told to put all my clothes into a plastic bag and given two hospital gowns to put on (the first with the opening at the back, the second with the opening at the front). As there were three other people in this "suite" with me, I hissed at the nurse, "I'm having my period". I assumed that she would simply tell me to leave my panties on. But no. Hospitals have panties too. Actually, panties are things that you buy at Sears and can sometimes look pretty and make you feel sexy. These things were like a mixture of cheese cloth and fishnet with two holes randomly placed in them, and some elastic. I swear to god they were one size fits all. And then I got to use a hospital sanitary napkin. It was approximately three feet long. At least I got to wrestle with it in the bathroom. Then they weighed and measured me and the nurse said "well aren't you a small one", which made me wonder if they were going to throw me back or something. I returned to my bed and eventually another nurse came around, asked a bunch of questions and then put in an IV. I guess I should say here that I've never had any surgery of any kind, been put under, or had an IV. I immediately stopped using my left arm once the IV was in and taped to it. I just kept looking at the drip, following the tube down to my arm and remembering there was a needle inserted into my vein and that movement of the arm was likely bad. Then the nurse came around to look at my abdomen and discerned that I needed a shave (after struggling to push the all-encompassing cheese cloth down over my hipbones). I think it was at about this time that I really stopped caring or having any allusions of dignity. I also felt badly for the nurse, because no matter how bad my day at work is, I never have to shave anyone's pubic hair. Though I have attempted to a couple of times. Then I got to clean out my belly button with rubbing alcohol. I was a little concerned, they'll trim my pubic hair but won't clean my belly button? The service was a little inconsistent. Then I got to take 3 Tylenol, an antacid and a couple of other pills all at once with about two tablespoons of water. I managed to do it, so I was pretty proud of myself. Then the nurse brought me some magazines and I basically read and stared at the ceiling for over an hour.
After a while an older, angrier nurse came and asked me more questions. Then went away. Then came back and said "do you want to use the washroom now?" to which I figured now was as good a time as ever. This involved hooking my IV up to a stand on wheels, which of course terrified me because I had to walk with it and, draped in my billowing hospital gown, I was sure I was going to catch it on something and rip it out of my arm. Yeah, me in my cheese cloth panties, two hospital gowns and and IV bag in a little hospital washroom, trying to tinkle one last time was brilliant. I came out and then got to take my IV bag for a walk, to sit and wait for my surgeon near the surgery room. Another nurse came over (I believe she was the one that would administer the anesthetic) and we chatted about being put out. Everyone seemed surprised that this was my first time (do I look like someone that gets operated on a lot??), and she said that the anesthetic was no big deal and that she had heard if you thought of a nice place while you were going under, that you might actually go there while you were out. Shortly thereafter my surgeon came into the hospital, shook my hand (which I thought was a good precursor to the fact that he would know me inside and out within the next half hour) and went to get scrubbed in. The nice nurse came and took my IV bag and started to lead me into the operating room. She said, "do you know where you're going?" to which I paused and said, "into surgery?". Evidently she was asking if I had determined what locale I was going to fixate on as I was going under. I'm a dummy.
Alright, this is the total best part of the whole day. There was a female resident or something sitting in a chair in the operating room, so I'm like hey, how's it going. Then they took off the outside robe (so now I was in one robe with the opening at the back - which was not closed) and then said I had to step out of my sexy panties. I said I was having my period and they said, "we'll take care of it". That was it: "we'll take care of it". How? How will you take care of it? That's what the three foot long sanitary napkin was doing. What are you going to do? So I am stripped of my panties and gigantic pad and I'm like, yeah, this is super. I am so having a good, happy time right now. Then I sit my bare ass down on the operating table and they help me get situated and put heart monitors on my chest, my finger, and hook me up to a blood pressure machine. Then a couple more people come in. This guy, who is not my doctor, says hey. They start discussing that I am healthy, haven't had surgery and have no allergies. He asks if there is anything that he should know. Do these people not communicate with one another? I said, "Uh, I have hypoglycemia?". Upon hearing this he kind of panics. One of the nurses asks what the symptoms are. I say, "well, I get kind of dizzy and faint and then I pass out". I clearly remember noting this on the medical forms. He kind of starts flailing around and asking people questions about my blood sugar levels, and I never heard anyone answer him, so now I think I'm going to die. Oh, and my little cap was rolling down my forhead and fitting itself snugly around my head via my EYES but because they had me all tucked in I couldn't move my arms so I had to yelp for help. They pushed it back up. The lady nurse says, "so these symptoms happen when you don't eat for some time, right?" to which I say "yes, I don't just randomly pass out" and they all laugh, ha ha the patient said a funny. All the while I'm thinking please let there be glucose in the drip because it's now 12:30 and I haven't eaten for over 12 hours.
Then they put oxygen over my nose and mouth and tell me to breath deeply, which I do, all the while listening to the beeping of all my vitals. I saw someone else injecting something into my IV bag and thought "this is it! This is where the FBI takes me out for all my anti-Bush rhetoric!", but the nurse says, "you're going to start to feel a little drowsy" and that was the last damn thing I heard.
No recollection of my dreams or anything.
Next few memories pretty groggy. People were buzzing around asking me questions and I felt awful. My throat was totally raw and I was phlemgy. The lights hurt my eyes. People were asking me to check my teeth, to see if they were chipped. Why would my teeth be chipped? Then I think my surgeon (?) said they had discovered I had endometriosis (this blog is too long, google it) and had done some work to fix it. I was like come on! I can't talk, I can barely open my eyes and I have no idea what's going on, give me a frickin' bone here. I kept on telling myself to wake up, to open my eyes and to try and get my mouth working properly, because all these people were asking me questions and telling me things, but I just wanted to go back to sleep.
Somehow I got back to the day suite where I had been before and they asked if someone was picking me up. I said, yes, Michael was. He was supposed to be waiting on the bench outside at 2pm. Of course he said that they told him 2:30, but I was there when they told him what time and it was 2pm. My surgery was at 12:30, he was to be there at 2pm. So of course they can't find him. That's cool. Cause there was still more fun to be had until he got there. Yes.
I'm still a bit groggy on the details, but I did have to go back into the washroom to try and fumble my way into another pair of scrunchy, mesh panties and finagle a three foot pad into them. With the IV still. Having just woken up from surgery. Yup, not feeling too hot. So I manage this, and then I hear the nurse directing Michael into my little cubicle area. I emerge, victorious, from the washroom, with my friend the IV stand trailing behind me. Michael looks at me, doesn't say much. I sit back on the bed and the nurse removes my IV, which apparently grosses Michael out. Oh, it was about to get so, so much worse for him. We discuss my teeth some more. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but someone thought they had chipped my tooth when they were doing something - possibly putting a breathing tube down my throat? - but my teeth were all fine. Having something stuck down my throat would explain why, when I woke up, I felt like I had had something stuck down my throat, but my mom says I'm crazy. She says that all the time. The nurse brings my clothes and closes the drapes so I can put on my civvies. I take off my hospital gown and my stomach, abdomen and the tops of my legs are bright yellow, covered in sticky iodine. That, plus I have a huge patch over my belly button and a couple of bloody incisions covered in clear tape at the top of my (now freshly shaved) pubis. Michael just sits there, trying to be positive and enjoy my funtime panties and elephant sanitary pad. He says, "I'll bring the car around", to which I say "no, I'd like to walk a bit".
I go home, have a nap. Michael tells me I look great. I don't feel so great.
Today Michael went to work and I go to wander around Kerrisdale. I run into my very good friend outside her work. I'm wearing sweat pants, a baggy shirt and huge sunglasses. I am walking very slowly because I'm in some discomfort. My friend looks great, tanned, has just had her hair highlighted and it looks magnificent. I tell her this. I say "cause I know you're looking at me and thinking, there's a picture of health" to which she says "you look like... well, you look like someone that's just had surgery". This is true. I tell her that somehow, between my operation yesterday and today I have gained eight pounds and my stomach is sticking out (further than usual). She has had surgery a couple of times and tells me this is normal and then laughs, and says never mind. But then she comes out with it "unless they left something that weighs eight pounds inside you". We both laugh. I shuffle home.
posted by Duder at 6:46 PM
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