Reading back over my last post before my operation, I could almost feel a sense of excitement and challenge about the upcoming surgery and the eventual relief from the pain I have endured over the past year. I trained as I trained years ago for the Marathon that I ran. I knew it would be hard, challenging, tortuous, but the finish line would hold so much promise. I was prepared as any patient could be. Everything that I could do physically, emotionally and spiritually had been done. My army of supporters and volunteers had been amassed and I was ready. Just do it.
I felt so confident and peaceful as I was prepped for surgery. I had a terrific discussion with the anesthesiologist about pain relief and management and then spoke with both surgeons about all of the details of the surgery, signed the consent forms and then kissed my sweet Ken, good night.
And then I woke up. All of the feelings I had prior to anesthesia were now replaced with vulnerability and a terrible feeling of actually loosing control of myself. There was disorientation, fear, desperation and pain, all rolled up together into one of the worst sensations I have ever felt. I have felt that way two other times: after emergency open heart surgery several years ago, and after the ginormous hernia surgery fiasco last year. I hope to never feel it again.
As I became more stable and responsive, I was able to begin to gather my thoughts and start using my breathing techniques to help calm and reorient myself to being conscious. But then, PAIN. Can't describe it, don't even want to think about it, but lots of it. And a critical oversight. They did not hook me to a Dilaudid pump for pain management as we had discussed. It took hours to correct that and even longer to try to get on top of the pain, rather than having it drag me down.
Both surgeons were amazed with how much destruction, scarring and stranding of infection was present in my abdomen from the defective mesh. It is truly a miracle that over the past year, that I did not succumb to a massive infection. Go green juicing!! It was cetainly the Pandora's Box we had all been waiting to open, but the contents were much worse than what was expected. I was told that the breaking down of the fascia in my belly was a chronic, incurable immunio ailment. If I do not change my lifetyle completely, the hernias will keep on coming. Right now there are nine.
Unless the hernias become enstrangulated, twisted or something else that I don't even want to think about, they will be left as is. The decision to try to repair them with fascia from my hips and thights is completely off the table; we just want to protect what is there now.
So my visions of enduring whatever I had to, to bring myself to a version of as close to the old, athletic me, forget athletic..just my old self... have been swept away. The only thing I can do now is ACCEPT and change my life and even the lives of Ken and the kids in a very dramatic way.
Accept: Thy will, not mine, be done. I say this so many times a day that I lose count. I am now to treat my body as though there were layers of bubblewrap wrapped around me to protect my belly. This will be so hard for me. I love my independence and have been so blessed to still have it after all of the years of fighting cancer. I love to do things like rearrange furniture to suit my moods, haul stuff up and down stair cases at the time I may need them, or even go to the grocery, fill a cart, bag it up, bring it home and unload it - by myself, on my schedule. No more. Nope. Notta. Finito. Basically, not lifting, pulling or pushing anything that weighs more than little Bella. Forever. Whether I think I can or not, never again.
Of course, with all of this we will have to make some really big decisions about the house very soon. Can I manage when Ken is out of town? Torrie will be leaving this time next year for college, too. Too overwhelming when looked at all at one time, so I let the Scarlett in me come out and "I'll think about that tomorrow."
I came home from surgery on August 14 and was directly admitted again less than 36 hours later with a temp of 103.8 and a new raging infection in my belly. I was reopened, cleaned out and big guns of antibiotics were administered. There is now a large, deep wound which must heal from the inside out. Insurance pays for a nurse to come once a day to to come and unpack, clean out and repack the wound. It is nasty and excruciating. It needs to be done twice a so I have counted on a few volunteers to help me until I can do this myself. This will take a long time. It turned out that this was an aggressive hospital borne staph infection, but fortunately rthe antibiotics are fighting it... and I am home.
Thank you to all of you for your notes of ecouragement and love, they sustain me.
I know I have something big to do; my meditation, my writing, something. I can feel it pulling me and I am ready to move forward. I trust God implicitly and I know He will carry the load for me that I no longer can. And I will share His miracles that He has blessed me with, to anyone that will listen.
Thy will, not mine, be done.
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