Hospital catch up

I’m writing this from my hospital bed, the day after my laparoscopy.  I was hoping to get home today, but unfortunately I’m still a lot of pain, and I’m not allowed home while on oral morphine L

Yesterday was a very long day.  We had to leave the house at 6.15 (as usual we were late and ended up leaving at 6.30).  When I arrived I had to go through all the normal checks, including a pregnancy test.  DH and I laughed about how we would have reacted if she had said we were pregnant.  We’re allowed to dream aren’t we?  Because I have a latex allergy, I had ro be shifted down the surgery list, which meant I had to wait another hour and a half for my surgery space.  You see, my body does hate me!

I eventually went down to theatre, and after being asked for the thousandth time that morning, my name, date of birth, what I was allergic to etc (oh and the constant reminder that I was starving and thirsty having not had anything to eat for over 13 hours or drink for over 6 hours!) I was eventually given the medicine which let me drift off to sleep.

I woke up, and wasn’t in any real pain.  My IV morphine was working well on the pain, but it was also slowing my breathing, so there was a mad panic around me trying to get my breathing back to ‘normal’.  I have to admit, I was slightly annoyed by the fuss – all I wanted to do was go to sleep.  How jolly rude!

When I made it back to the ward, my lovely DH was there waiting for me.  My in-laws had also arrived and brought my little boy to see me.  He is so unbelievably brave, and though he didn’t like the IV line, he was fine seeing his Mummy look rough.  I’m so proud of my little man.

My consultant came to see me at the end of her theatre list.  She was lovely.  She has this really calm and gentle voice.  I can see why Mr H was happy for me to sneak onto her surgery list rather than wait until April to see him.  She also works at Nurture, and before going into theatre she had been very honest about the surgery – the aim was to increase my chances of a successful IVF cycle, but she couldn’t work miracles.  So when she arrived at my bedside, I had the anxious moment that she was going to tell me that there was too much damage and IVF wouldn’t be an option.  BUT I was wrong... She explained that she hadn’t been able to remove the cyst on my right ovary (hence the odd shaped tummy) but she had managed to unstuck my left ovary.  It seems that my left ovary had decided to attach itself to the surrounding organs.  The endo had formed a sticky mesh which was causing the pain.  Though she can’t guarantee that it has all gone, as there was such a lot, she has done enough to give me my chance of having another baby!!!  At this point, if I had been able to move (as the pain meds were starting to wear off) I could have hugged her.  Now I have to wait 6 weeks for down reg.  That’s right, one more period and then it’s all systems go!!!

Unfortunately, since then I haven’t reacted well to the surgery.  There is a lot of pain.  I wanted to get home today, but it seems that my body had different plans.  I know that there was a lot of endo to burn away.  The 3 little cuts on my tummy are hiding a couple of hour’s worth of surgery.  I have had laparoscopies before.  The last one took a while to recover from, but for some reason the pain this time has really taken me by surprise.  I can barely get out of bed, but I am determined to get home tomorrow.  I miss my little boy and DH.  I miss my own bed.

My little one is having a great time.  He is spending the night with my Mum and Dad.  Tonight he’s been to the circus and had his face painted for the first time.  I have been sent a lovely pic of his excited little tiger face.  I have tried to speak to him on the phone, but it’s like trying to pin down a jack rabbit – he just blurted out that he’s been to the circus, and was off again.  I don’t mind.  As long as he is happy, that is all I worry about.

I hope that this makes some sense.  I am still drugged and getting tired.  I am going to try and venture out of bed for a minute.  I just want to say thank you for everyone’s really kind messages before I came in yesterday.  It really means a lot to me knowing you are all there for me.  I hope I can return the favour one day!

xxxx