The folks at Cedars are quite fantastic and I will surely send in commendations for the nursing staff. Ok so this is how it went down:
After surgery when I "woke up," I just remember eating tiny ice cubes and needing to drink water. As I've read on the message boards, I had a significant amount of pain from the gas. I asked if I could take Gas-X or if the could help me and I was told to walk. Eventually I got up to pee, which seriously was a painful trickle, but no gas release. I figured if they wouldn't give me anything, I'd take the gas x in the car.
As info, I checked in @ 5a, pre-op began around 6a, surgery was 7:15, and I think I woke up just before 9a. I was released to go home at 1:30p. I had a thick pillow with me that I strapped the seatbelt around which was really helpful. I didn't feel every bump on the road but I certainly felt those godawful bigger potholes that lie all about this damned city!
When I got to the car, my teeth started chattering which I thought was weird. I took a gas x, which is seriously disgusting, and waited for it to kick in. When we got home, I didn't feel like I needed as much help to get out of the car and walk into the house but my husband was right there to help.
When we got in the house I immediately felt pain, so I took some of the painkiller. The dosage said 15-30 ml so I took 15. I also took the smashed anti-barf pill with a lil applesauce, which was so bitter it made me gag. I kept drinking water and started on some v-8, but suddenly I couldn't deal with any of it. I started getting sweaty hot but had the chills, got super dizzy, nauseous and just felt pain. None of the meds were helping. On top of it, my throat was super sore from having a tube down during surgery and I had lots of sticky, dry phlegm at the back of my throat that I was trying to get out but couldn't because of pain. That gas pressure felt like my ribs and lungs were bruised. I was trying to burp myself by patting my chest and even had my husband patting my back at the same time. Nothing. Eventually tiny burps came out but did nothing in terms of relief. I just kept pacing and trying to sit straight up to get the gas out. Nothing. The pressure seemed to get worse and my panic about it started making the pain worse but I was afraid to take more meds because it had only been 2 1/2 hors since the last dose. A half hour later that went out the window and I started with he meds. First was Prilosec capsule open in applesauce - the wrong medium btw. The med balls got stuck in my teeth. The nausea got so bad, I felt like I was gonna barf, and I couldn't finish the applesauce. I took another anti-barf pill but took it whole with a swallow of water. I knew I'd definitely barf if I smashed it again. I paced some more then sat. My husband just rubbed my back for what seemed like hours. When i finally got up to pee, i burped a little and felt a slight relief, but still horribly painful. I started freaking out which exacerbated all the pain and caused me to cough. The phlegm was so bad, I tried to cough it up which triggered me to totally gag. Since I was extremely nauseous already, my mouth started watering, I got hot chills and immediately threw a cold, wet cloth on the back of my neck and ears because I knew I wad about to barf. Just the gag was extremely painful and I knew if I let myself barf, it would just be a bout of painful heaves since I had nothing but water and drugs. As I stood over the sink getting ready to face the faux barf, my husband immediately started rubbing my back. It felt so good and soothing, shortly the barfiness subsided. He just stayed there with me for an hour and rubbed my back. Finally, more burps came out and relief started showing up. During that time I felt ok enough to take more pain meds, but took 20 ml. Suddenly, everything seemed to kick in all St he same time and I felt like myself again. I was still in pain and gassy, but it was tolerable and I was able to relax and actually rest.
I took another dose of pain meds at midnight and went to bed. Woke up today at 6a and took a dose of pain meds. I still have some gas stuck and sticky phlegm and am sipping on some sweet potato soup for breakfast. I will have some protein laced v8. I'm gonna go for a walk later too.
The tip of the story: gas x sucks and be sure you have someone to stand behind you for hours and tub the gas out. Ttfn
No comments:
Post a Comment