Hello, everyone! I feel like I haven't blogged in quite some time. On a good note, I've noticed that typing hasn't bothered me that much since surgery! Yay for my medication working! :) I have an appointment with my neurologist in a couple of hours, and I'm so excited to see him. I feel very comfortable with him, and we haven't spoken since my last visit. I can't wait to show him the incision sites! Since I'm on the topic, how about a surgery update?
I had a thymectomy on Tuesday morning. Our check in time was 6:00 AM, which was probably best. With me having pretty much insomnia lately, I knew I'd be up bright and early anyway. Monday night I had to start my official, official surgery prep. No eating 12 hours before surgery was the first direction. This just ended up being comical. We had decided to make a chicken and rice casserole that my sister-in-law's sister had given me a recipe for and is now a favorite for Bob and me. Well I had to stop eating by either 6:00 or 7:40 (surgery time)...we weren't sure, so we were just going to go with 6:00. Well I totally forgot to start making dinner, so it wasn't ready until 5:45. Even then, I felt bad because I wanted it to sit for a bit. Mom was on the phone with either dad or a coworker, and Bob was on his work phone, so I went ahead and ate by myself. I know it's not that big of a deal, but it still COULD be a last meal (I guess any meal could be), but they were both shocked when they got off their phones and it was past 6:00. I think they enjoyed the meal, though. :)
The next direction was to cleanse in the shower with this special soap that wouldn't lather and basically just sucked. I think this started to mentally freak me out. I had to have help because I was a little weak and we had to cleanse the surgery site extra carefully. As I got out and put on my fresh clothes, things were winding down for the night. Bob was upset because I wanted to paint my mom's toenails (I'd promised her I would, even though it's not that big of a deal), and he wanted to go to sleep. For this night, anyway, mom was going to sleep in bed with me and Bob was going to be on the couch. So Bob yelled at me about how he had to work in the morning and I yelled at him about how I had to have surgery...great things to fall asleep to, right? Anyway, we finally all went to bed and I apologized to Bob in the morning...making me feel much more at ease.
We went to the hospital in the morning with no problems except a long wait. It turns out my surgery wasn't scheduled until 8:30. I'd gotten the wrong paperwork in the mail! Crazy! My hospital very rarely makes mistakes, and I love them, so as long as I still got to have the surgery on that day, I was fine. This also meant, though, that what we thought was going to be a 2 hour surgery from the mail information was actually going to be more like 4 or 5. Poor mom and Bob. Bob had been planning on going into work as soon as he got the word I was out of surgery and fine, but he ended up taking the day off. I guess my mom is used to it since Kyle had about a billion surgeries in his day. I asked her once how she copes when we're in surgery and she said you just can't think about it because you don't have any control. You trust the doctors who are in there and pray. :) Love my momma.
Now this may seem like a weird thing, but to those of you in serious relationships or recently married, picture this...it's just strange. As I prepared to go up to surgery, they said only one person could go with us. Mom and Bob had already decided Bob was going. I felt bad, because I didn't know if my mom was worried or not, but it's true. Bob is MY family now. Just us two. It's just so weird to think about...I hope that makes sense. So I was a little shocked as I rode up the elevator, but then I was fine. They laid me down in a bed and the anesthesiologist came over to introduce himself and ask me questions. He seemed really nice and the one thing he had to do before I was out wasn't very painful at all even though he said it would be, so I liked him an EXTRA lot. :) Then a nurse came over and said she had to give me my first of a series of shots I'd be getting to prevent blood clots. She continued to tell me how this was going to be very painful each time and she was so sorry she had to do it (great confidence boost, right?!). But, to my surprise...no pain! I mean, I had the pain from the needle going in, but nothing from the medicine. To this day, a week later, I do have huge red/blue/purple bruises on my stomach from each and every shot, though. I'd take pictures to gross you out, but then you'd never read my blog again. They're hideous, though.
The next thing I know, I was being taken back to surgery. I said good-bye and told Bob I loved him and would see him afterward. The next thing I remember is them putting the gas mask on me and asking if I'd picked out a dream yet. I hadn't...I was still praying. Then...I woke up! First I was in recovery, then I was in the ICU, which was pre-planned. Since a lot of people with Myasthenia Gravis have problems chewing and breathing, they did it as a precaution. They told me after my overnight stay that I was "low-maintenance". HA! Even I know they didn't see the real me, then! ;) I keep reminding Bob that I'm low-mainenance, though. I still had sleeping problems, but they did have to keep giving me pills, make me do my breathing tests, etc., so I'm glad I brought some library books that I had checked out. I was dismissed from the hospital on Thursday afternoon, and the 9 total nurses I had were all wonderful. My two favorite were Brittany and Lynn from the ICU. So much fun! They let me joke around with them a lot. :)
The one condition to me being released was no problems when "the tube" came out. The tube...this infamous tube they had put in my body that I had pretty much no clue what it was doing. 3 incisions were made - one under my right breast, one near my right armpit, and one on the side of my right breast - that one was for the tube. As of today, the steri-strips have all fallen off of the incision under my breast, and it's healing greatly! Only a 1 inch incision! The two steri-strips on the upper incision are still there, but it's a small incision, as well (this is where the cameras went in!). The last incision, though it's the biggest, doesn't have any steri-strips. That confuses me, because it's the largest. I do have a stitch in it that will be taken out next Wednesday. So, as you can see, 3 very tiny incisions. Also, hardly any pain after the surgery. On a scale of 1 - 10, the highest pain I ever had was a 4! I HIGHLY recommend robotic surgery!
Anyway, the tube! So I'm picturing this tube to be about 2 - 5 inches long. They had to do a couple of chest X-Rays to make sure I was healing OK from the inside, and on Thursday morning I got the official go ahead to have the tube taken out. So in comes a doctor with just a few tools and we went over the directions again...I hold my breath as it's taken out and if anything, let it out slowly - NO sharp breaths. So he asks if I'm ready and I say yes and out comes this llloooonnnggg tube! Ohmygoodness! It was about 1 1/2 feet long, no joke. I'm amazed that was in me. Anyway, it had been poking me all the way over in my left ribs, so I was so glad to have that out of me. Since mom was on her way, I got up, took a few "laps" around the floor, folded all of the blankets, packed my stuff up...I was READY to go home! :)
Since then there have been a few problems with running out of breath and a lot of coughing, but it's all normal from everything they had to do in my chest. Now, a week later, I feel pretty much back to normal! As far as the MG goes, results could show up to a year from now, so I'm trying not to think to much into it. But if anything goes, I'm still typing, and it doesn't hurt. :) However, I'm still a little terrified of going up stairs. One step at a time, right?
So! Onto what I originally thought I was going to post about - my goals! My friend Kelly is such a wonderful blogger, and she just got a new blog from her amazing fiancé. :) http://www.beagleandbear.com/ She is the one that inspired me to do these goals, and each time I see her updates it reminds me that I need to stay on top of mine if I haven't. So, here are the updates for mine. It is, after all, April now!
- Diet - As of last Sunday, I've still stayed at about the same weight. I thought I was going to be on a liquid diet after the surgery, so mom and I went out to eat at the Space Needle, melting Pot, etc. This took up a lot of points, and I ended up gaining 0.4 lbs. last week. I'm OK with that, though. I'm back on track this week. My goal for this month is to LOSE each week, no matter how much that loss is.
- Exercise - I don't think I'm as serious about the gym idea I had in my last post. My goal for exercise for the month is to start Zumba again, even if it's just 10 minutes at a time.
- Finances - For April finances, I'd like to pay mom & dad back at least a little bit. Also part of finances is deciding if/when I'm getting my tattoo. :)
- Old Friendships - I've been sticking with my goal of writing a lot of snail mail, and I'm loving it! I definitely want to keep this up!
- New Friendships - This, sadly, might have to be put on the back burner for April, and not as a way of getting out of it! I want to hang out with Brittney sooo badly (a new teacher in my district), but we have SO many things that are due in April that it'll be difficult, especially with my being gone the past week and this week for Spring Break. Maybe we can have celebratory tea after our summer school items are due April 20th?!
- Career - I'm still taking advantage of all of the classes that our District offers. Brittney is actually taking a CBM class with me. We have a big break before our next class (May 1st) in which we have to collect data. I'm signed up for a SongSmith and AutoCollage 2 day class, as well. On top of that, I'm helping out with choir every Thursday morning, as well. Everything is going great!
Just in case you didn't see it last time, or want to see it again:
- Adventure - I've been having HUGE back and forth feelings about my tattoo. My mom and Bob (obviously people who have a huge impact in my life) think that getting the tattoo "I Can" on my wrist will be trashy. I have thought about moving the tattoo to my foot, but there is a lot of reasoning for it being on my wrist, and I don't want to compromise something like that for someone else. However, I also don't want my husband and mom thinking I'm trashy for the rest of my life. Hmm...things to ponder...
One last thing I want to comment on is how amazing my time in college was. I often miss a lot of things, but especially Alpha Omicron Pi and Alpha Phi Omega. Without my Sorority and Fraternity, I wouldn't have met so many of the amazing people that I have including my husband and all of my best friends. Just recently, I've been more and more amazed at the wonderful things that are happening since I graduated. My family in APhiO is growing amazingly, and I hope/think they're staying just as closely knit as we were a year ago. In addition to that, My LITTLE was elected to be the newest PRESIDENT of our Fraternity!!! Woohoo!! On top of that, My GRANDLITTLE is the newest Vice President of Membership. Another family member is our newest Vice President of Service (one of my prior positions...she'll be great!) My GREAT GRANDLITTLE is our newest treasurer. While I'm obviously thrilled for our family and the leadership they are showing, Alpha Phi Omega is full of so many leaders anyway, that everyone shows it in some way! Congratulations to ALL of the newest Executive board! I couldn't be happier! :)
Well, time to sign off of this gigantic post. I hope that if you've suffered through to the end it was at least somewhat enjoyable. Please leave the love and comments!
Much Love,
Katie
P.S. If you want gross post-surgery pictures, let me know. :)
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