VI: Infinite Worth? Not exactly...

I came up with a fun game. It's called "How Much is my Life Worth?" and it's played by adding up medical bills. Pretty sure I've gotten them all now, so here are some fun numbers:

• Hospital Stay (including rooms, equipment, pharmacy, labs, and nursing): $83,314.63
• Surgeons: $6,431.00
• Anesthesiologists: $4,830.00
  
• Radiologists: $541.00
• Other Doctors: $ 1,628.00
• Urgent Care (& CT & labs, for both visits): $1,482.60

...for a Grand Total of $98,227.23! Yep, that's how much it cost to keep me alive through all of this nonsense. Thankfully, that is not the amount I have to pay. But clearly, this is how much I am worth. An interesting thought. :)

And now, I think we'll take a closer look at that hospital bill. It's really quite interesting reading! (All 8 pages of it, front and back!) The single most expensive item was the room for my second surgery (not doctors, nurses, equipment, or drugs: the room itself), which cost $7,052.50. Insane! And the cheapest item was the iron supplements they had me taking, which each cost $0.28. So there was quite a range. Incidentally, reading through this bill is how I learned I have staples. The things surgeons don't tell you.

So if you ever start wondering how much your life is worth, arrange to almost die. It's an enlightening experience. ;)

Indulging my Inner Child

I really needed to get out and do something yesterday, so Kyle and I went to see a new exhibition at the MOA. It's by Walter Wick, the guy who does all those I SPY and Can You See What I See books. Since it was opening night, there was also an artist's lecture. We debated for a while about whether or not to go, but I decided the possibility of it being awesome was greater than the risk of it being lame. So we went, and I was right: it was awesome. He showed a bunch of slides of how he made those images, and it was stuff that I never would have thought about just walking through the exhibit. I really enjoyed it. One of the highlights was definitely the kids in the audience. They knew those books backwards and forwards. In fact, there was one really cool image up in which there were 7 playing cards with missing parts. A little boy pointed out that "the king with the...um...broccoli..." (where "broccoli" can also be understood as "clubs" (or, even, "puppy feet")) was missing his mustache on the bottom half. Walter Wick eventually decided that the resolution on the screen must not be high enough to see it—and he couldn't remember. Sure enough, though, I checked the photo hanging in the exhibit, and he was right.

Afterward, Kyle and I went and looked at all the stuff, and it was neat. There were several of the photographs, as well as tons of the actual models and even a couple of the sets he used. I decided I may need to find myself a copy of this. (Actually, if you look around his site a bit, you can see several photos of how they created sets and such. Great fun.) All in all, it was a great way to cure my lousy mood.

A Belated Holiday Post

It occurred to me today that I never blogged Valentine's Day when Tanna pointed out that my blog has many cooking failures on it but no successes. I pointed out that failures are funny and successes are not. But then I remembered Valentine's Day, so here we are. Not that it was funny, but it was blog-worthy. Anyway...

As of Thursday night (the 12th), Kyle was very sick. He warned me not to expect much for Valentine's Day, which was fine with me, as I was quite tired all the time, too. But Friday he was feeling better, and on Saturday he was more energetic than I'd seen him in weeks, not to mention being in a very good mood. The day started with Kyle coming to my house to pick me up. He stopped at the store on the way to get food for dinner, and he brought me some lovely roses. While I put them in a vase, he made some preliminary preparations for dinner. (I wasn't allowed to peek.) He also gave me a cup full of conversation hearts (the good ones, of course) with all the nasty white ones picked out, so I munched on those, too. Then we went over to his house so he could do laundry. Romantic, right? But we caught up on some tv shows while laundry was running for a few hours, which was nice and relaxing.

We came back to my house around 6 for dinner. I was instructed to turn on some music and lay on the couch and read while Kyle cooked dinner. I also wasn't supposed to peek at any point during the preparations, but come on: I could see straight into the kitchen from the couch. But I did my best. In case anybody's gotten the wrong idea from my blog, Kyle is actually a very good cook. Perhaps it's only when I "help" that things go awry? The point is that dinner was amazing. Steaks marinated in Italian dressing, broccoli, garlic mashed potatoes, and rolls. All eaten by candlelight, which was a first for me. For dessert, he made brownie pudding, which was also quite tasty.

After dinner, we started Harry Potter 5, marking our return from a lengthy hiatus from Harry Potter. (Don't tell him I said so, but I think Kyle's actually getting into these books now.) Then we watched Enchanted. I love that movie!

All in all, it was a great Valentine's Day. :D

Status Report: 4 weeks

That's right, folks! 6 weeks ago today, I went into the hospital, and 4 weeks ago today, I got out! (The following items are not in any order at all, except the order I thought of them in.)

• I can cook and clean up simple meals.
• Yesterday, I stayed at church for not only sacrament meeting, but also sunday school.
  
• I sleep mostly through the night, which is major and only started a few nights ago. When I first got out of the hospital, I woke up every hour (in addition to having horrible nightmares). But the nightmares stopped after a week or so, and I'm much more comfortable laying on my sides, instead of just on my back. This makes for much more restful nights—huzzay!
• I haven't tried driving yet, but I think I will soon. My concern has been that I think the muscles required to move the shifter are the ones that got sliced apart, but my back and side are hurting me much less these days, and I think I've recovered enough mobility in my neck to be able to look around properly, so I think it's time I gave it a shot.
• Kyle and I are just over a quarter of the way through Harry Potter 5 (we took a break for a bit while he had mono, as his throat was extremely sore). P.S., if you ever have the chance to get Kyle to read to you, take it! He does all the voices. ;)
  
• I can do laundry, though I think real cleaning is still a bit beyond me.
• I can carry stuff! When I first got home, I had to have Mom or Kyle cart my stuff around the house for me (really, just between my room and the living room, since that's where I spent all my time). But now I can lift and carry things—well, as long as they're comparatively small. I haven't tried to take out the kitchen garbage, for the same reason I haven't tried driving; those lifting muscles are still not working great.
• I can sometimes open doors, as long as they're not too heavy. You have no idea how much you use those back and side muscles until somebody cuts them apart and you can't.
  
• I'm working again, though almost entirely from home. (Thank goodness for remote access!) But I have been into the office a couple of times for a couple of hours each. It felt good to be there, but I get so tired. Even though the chairs there are nice and don't hurt my back, it's just more tiring to sit somewhere else than to sit at home on the couch.
• I'm getting out of the house a lot more. In the last week, I've been to the grocery store (a mini-trip), Kyle's house a couple of times, meetings at work, dinner at Brick Oven, a wedding reception up in Sandy, and church. For comparison, the first week I was home, I didn't leave the house. At all.
• I only take lortab for flare-ups now. (When I first came home, I was taking it every 4 hours.) But about two weeks ago I started using the lortab lots less, though my use of ibuprofen went way up. And now I only take both of them as needed, and that's becoming less and less frequent. I sometimes go 2 or 3 days without any lortab, which is great.
• My incisions are healing up nicely. I...don't really know what else to say on that front. People keep telling me that the ones on my neck are "really not that bad" and they're sure to "heal up just fine." Of course, they say these things completely out of the blue and with no provocation, so they feel more like false reassurances. Oh well. I'm really not fussed about that; it's not like "being pretty" has ever been a major goal in my life. And I do think they'll heal up alright. Eventually.
• My singing voice is coming back, too. And I think my normal speaking voice is basically back to normal. It was just a little off, somehow, for a while. Or perhaps I've just gotten used to it? In any case, I'm regaining my ability to sing, which is nice.
• AND I can take a deep breath without killing myself, and sneezing is only moderately painful. So both my lungs and my ribs are getting better about expanding, which is excellent.
  

I can't really think of anything else. All in all, I'm doing quite well. I'm improving well, even if it's not as fast as I'd like. And Kyle's been a dear about filling in with all the things I can't do and generally taking excellent care of me, so while there's still a long way to go, I can't complain. At all. :D

"I like my waffles like I like my women: hot!"

Last night, Kyle and I decided to try our hand at waffles again. (In case you don't commit every weird happening in my life to your long-term memory, check out that link to refresh your memory. Who knew this would become an on-going feature?) Same as before, I mixed up the mix according to instructions. This time, Kyle checked it before using it; he declared it too runny and proceeded to thicken it up. So after it was of appropriate consistency, it was time to cook the waffles, right? Well, here's the first batch:I felt so extremely vindicated. It wasn't my batter-making skills at fault, despite the ridiculous amount of mockery I endured last time. Even after Kyle "fixed" it, we still had a mess. Which, this time, Kyle got to clean up (I was busy dipping the larger pieces in delicious buttermilk syrup (thanks, T!) and eating them):We decided the problem was either the PAM spray (did you know that's actually an acronym for "Product of Arthur Meyerhoff"? it's true!) or the iron wasn't hot enough. And so we proceeded to the second batch, this time without PAM:I'll admit, I laughed really hard. (Kyle was closer to weeping.) The iron got cleaned out once again (it was markedly easier this time) and for the third attempt, we let the iron heat up even longer. Success!Kyle was quite proud. We finally had waffles! Whole ones, neither pieces nor crumbs! It was a miracle. So next time we're gonna let the iron heat up extra long and skip the PAM and see if that does the trick. And finally, a side-by-side comparison of Kyle's handiwork:Heehee. It's a really good thing for me he's such a good sport. ;)

Lest you think my life isn't exciting anymore...

Kyle and I made pizza for dinner last night. And it was great. But there was a slight problem with the middle—the crust didn't get cooked all the way, so it was rather gooey. (We used a Pillsbury crust that rolls out into a rectangle. Kyle's still trying to pin this mess on my inability to "work the dough.") I considered taking a picture of Kyle trying to eat one of the middling pieces (as he held it, it just kept stretching and oozing downward), but I didn't. Shame on me, 'cuz it all just got better from there.

Kyle decided to try rehabilitating this piece of pizza by returning it to the oven from whence it came. It didn't work so well:Yeah. One big melty mess. (And we discovered when we cleaned up that the crust still wasn't done underneath! Crazy.)

Well, we still had half a pizza, and Kyle thought he'd try to save it all by just cooking it for a few more minutes on the rack. I didn't get a picture before we took it out of the oven (after letting it cool for a good long time), but here's what we were left with:Yes, the crust got cooked. We also lost quite a lot of cheese and dough—you can sorta see where the raw edge just sank down between the bars of the rack. Thankfully we put a cookie sheet underneath to catch the mess. (We actually spent some time sitting on the floor in front of the oven, watching the disaster unfold. Who needs fireplaces, anyway?) Despite this next picture, we decided it wasn't edible, as the sides were burnt and the whole thing had achieved the consistency of cardboard.

P.S. I've still got a coupla posts coming related to my hospital stay. I just don't wanna get behind on current events while I try to remember things and gather the energy to type long posts. But don't worry, they're coming!

V: Feeling Just Swell

(Disclaimer: I didn't come up with that title.)

As I've been getting out and about more, I am frequently asked how much weight I lost. The answer is approximately 15 pounds, which I don't seem to be regaining very quickly, despite the huge amounts of food I've been eating. (And before you say "Maybe I should get sick!" like a lot of people have, let me tell you: it's not worth it.)

But before the losing came the gaining! They pumped me so full of fluids in the hospital it was unreal. I swelled to epic proportions. You know those wristbands you get? They had to cut one off me after the second surgery because my arm was so swollen it was cutting into me. (Side note on wristbands: I had 3! A pink one with my name and such, which I got when I first arrived at the ER (this is the one they cut off me), a green one we never figured out the point of, and a blue one with a barcode they scanned whenever they gave me meds. Upon further consideration, the blue one seems to have been a replacement for the original pink one. I'm still unclear on the reason for the color change.)

I already knew I was swollen; I could see my hands, and they were funny looking. No veins or tendons or anything, just swollenness. And I could tell in my arms and legs, too. But the really interesting part was during one of my walks around the nurses' station. My nurse waylaid me to have me step on a scale. "Does that look about right?" she asked. "No, it looks about 30 pounds heavy!" It was bizarre. I mean, my thighs were so swollen it was weird to walk. But once they stopped pumping me full of fluids, it got better. My weight kept getting closer to what it had been, and I remember being overjoyed when I could see the tendons on the backs of my hands again. That was a good day.

So it wasn't until after that that I started genuinely losing weight. The major shifts up and down have just been a bit strange, is all.

I'm so talented.

I made my own lunch today! From scratch! Well, from a box. But I thought mac & cheese would be a fitting meal for my first time cooking in weeks and weeks. So yay!

Overdoing It

Monday was a big day. Turns out I rather overexerted myself, which I then paid for in misery. But I felt fine at the time! Kyle and I went to the outpatient clinic at 11:30 am to get blood drawn and a chest x-ray taken. Afterward, Kyle needed to go in to his lab to do some work, and I accompanied him, laptop in tow, planning to do some work of my own. The parking garage by his building was full, though, so we parked across campus and walked. (Yes, Kyle offered to drop me off and pick me up, but I opted to walk. Walking's good for me, and I don't get outside enough. I'm missing beautiful winter scenery for this recovery!)

After we'd been in the lab for not very long, we left again so Kyle could take me in to the office in Orem. (T and I are required to show our temple recommends to some HR guy who was gonna be there then, proving that we're temple worthy and therefore still allowed to work for the Church. (I still don't understand this. The Church has my records. Why don't they already know this?)) (Also, I took a lortab on the way up, since my back was starting to hurt.) Tanna and BJ were on their way home from Idaho, but we were really pushing the guy's scheduled time, so Kyle took me up there, dropped me off, and brought BJ back to campus while T and I did our thing. Of course, at 5 'til 2:00, the guy who was supposed to stay until 2:00 had already left. Bother that. But then we went upstairs so I could see our new home (we moved while I was in the hospital) and, more importantly, say hi to the missionaries. This was way fun; everybody was so glad to see me! So we sat and talked to them for like an hour and a half. Then T brought me back home again.

Excitement over, right? Right. But by this point, I was exhausted. So very tired. But 6:00 pm seemed too early for bed and too late for a nap, so I stayed awake. Even though I felt like a 2-year-old who had missed her nap and was consequently all kinds of cranky and fussy. Seriously, I was on the verge of tears for several hours, for no good reason other than that I was tired. And then my back decided to join in the fun. No matter how I turned or held my arm or laid, it was killing me. It took awhile, since I'm retarded, but I eventually remembered that I have pills for just this situation, and I took another lortab. Once it kicked in, I felt much better, though still very tired.

After all that, I should have slept like a log, right? But no. I was awakened at 3 am with a migraine (first one since all this started!), and every hour thereafter. Needless to say, this was not restful. By the time I got up and started getting ready to go to my follow-up, I was less cranky but in a lot of pain. I took a lortab when I got up, and another before we left. After the appointment, we had to go get my new prescription filled, which just about killed me. I was so miserable, the wait seemed to take hours. And nauseous. Oh man. I took some phenergan while we waited, which helped. But I still had to work really hard to not throw up in Kyle's car on the way home. Fortunately, when we got home, my fondest wish came true: I got to lay down on the couch and sleep. I took a 4-hour nap, and it was blissful. I stopped gagging. My back calmed down. My migraine went away. After that, my day went great. Evening, actually, by that point.

The current theory for the cause of all this misery is that I overdid it on Monday. Which is really quite sad; I didn't do that much. I had blood drawn and an x-ray taken. I went to campus. I went to the office. I came home. That's all. I was even sitting down whenever I wasn't walking. But considering my recent activity levels, it was a lot. Apparently too much. Man, this whole recovery thing is very frustrating.

Yet Another Follow-up

Yesterday was my follow-up with Dr. McCann, my thoracic surgeon. Except we didn't actually see him, but one of his partners, Dr. Loveless. I'm honestly not sure if I remember him, but he said he came to see me that first day after the surgery. (He was also in the surgery, but I obviously wouldn't remember him from that.)

Kyle took me to the outpatient clinic the day before so I could have blood drawn and a chest x-ray taken. They only had to stick me twice, so that was good. Everything went smoothly, but I started to get nervous that I could be informed the infection was back, an idea I find truly terrifying.

I needn't have worried; Dr. Loveless said everything's great. My chest x-ray looks good, and my white count is normal. Huzzay! I'm not dying anymore! Or again! He also took a look at my various incisions and said they all appear to be healing well.

Lessee, what else...oh! We were discussing how the thoracotomy incision still hurts a lot, but that's just life. Apparently, what they did was cut the muscle away from one of my ribs (ouch!) and then took a chunk out of the rib so it would spread further apart (more ouch!). So I guess the level of pain I'm still experiencing isn't really all that surprising.

I had to ask him about staples. When we were going through my itemized hospital bill, there were several things about staples (it was good reading—8 pages, front and back!). Dr. Loveless was confused for a minute, and he said they didn't use any. Then he remembered: Dr. Gibb put lots of staples in. In my neck. Which makes me feel very Frankensteinien. (Those things don't come back out! I'll have them forever. They won't set off security alarms or anything, but still. Weird. Turns out I both lost stuff and gained stuff during that surgery!) Also, I'm to keep my neck scars, especially, out of the sun for the next year or so. He said that if they burn, they'll turn out much worse. I really don't see this being a huge problem, though, vampire that I am.

Oh, and I got another round of "I'm not sure you understand how sick you were. This was...big. Very serious." Really, it just never gets old to hear about how close I came to death. ;)

Good news: I'm done with them! No more follow-ups. I find it a bit odd that I have to see Dr. Gibb again in three months, when the impression I've gotten is that the thoracic surgery was way more involved than the neck ones. But what do I know? In any case, I'm done with thoracic surgeons! (He was very nice, though, and stressed that if I had any questions at all, or if the incisions started to look not so good, or anything, I can call. Which is good.)

IV: Unrealistic Expectations?

Part of my recovery is that I'm not allowed to get sick. At all. For at least a year. If I get any kind of infection—cold, sore throat, you name it—before then, I am in trouble. I've been told, not just to get in to a doctor to get it checked out, but to call my surgeons so they can check it out. Geez, these guys are taking this so seriously. ;)

Okay, fine. I understand that any sort of illness could jeopardize my health. I also understand that they want to take extra precautions against the possibility that I might have a recurrence of this particular infection (and frankly, that is an idea that has terrified me ever since I left the hospital). What I don't understand is just how I'm supposed to manage this miracle. Aside from this recent disaster and my migraines, I'm a fairly healthy person. And yet I get a cold basically every six months, spring and fall. But now I'm not allowed. How do I do that? Shoot if I know.

III: I Give In

Okay, the peer pressure's getting to me. Let's look at some pics from the hospital.

Prepping for emergency surgery is fun! You can see a little bit how swollen my neck is. Also, note the lack of scarring! This will be the last picture of me without it.
Kyle, Tianna, and BJ were all there to help keep me from freaking out.
This is right after the first surgery. Looks like T's doing paperwork.
This is after I'd been moved out of ICU. I'm just eating lunch and recovering. I was doing so well! Oh, and those flowers were from Kyle (honestly, the most beautiful bouquet I've ever seen).
Sadly, I didn't stay doing well. This is after the second surgery, back in ICU. Check out all those tubes and wires!
Finally, Mom insisted on taking a "Jess is finally getting better again!" picture. This was the 25th, the day before I left the hospital, so I finally had had all the tubes removed, and I think the IV might have been gone, too. And I've got my trusty cup of ice (FYI, they have really good ice at the hospital!). You can see my neck scars here, too. Why'd they let saber-tooth tigers into the hospital, anyway? It'll be interesting to see how these look once they're done healing.

II: Hospital Life

I thought y'all might appreciate a description of what it's like to live in the hospital. Aside from surgeries and ICU and such, a typical recovery day went like this:

• Breakfast at 8 am. For most of my stay, I was on clear liquids, so my meals included jell-o, a popsicle, a bowl of chicken broth, apple juice, and a protein drink. (I eventually got to full liquids, which replaced the broth with soup, usually cream of mushroom, and then to regular food. Their food is actually pretty good; I was just completely lacking in appetite.)
• I usually had a tech come fetch me for a chest x-ray between 7 and 9 am. They'd put me in a wheelchair and take me down to radiology and then bring me back. I didn't particularly enjoy this; the x-ray itself required me to stand up, which was hard for me (though, there were things for me to lean against/hang on to, so that helped tons). And the techs were invariably very chatty. Super nice people who wanted to know where I was from, what I did for a living, on and on and on. Of course, I had neither the energy nor the inclination to talk, so that just bugged me. But still; nice people. Actually, all the hospital staff I interacted with were very nice. There were several who went above and beyond, but nobody really fell below the bar. Good people, all of them.
  
• Mom generally showed up around breakfast-time or a bit after and stayed until 9ish. Kyle would come around 10 or 11, depending on if he had class or not and how he was feeling (he's been sickly for part of this, too) and stay until I went to sleep for the night around 10 or 11. They entertained me throughout the day by reading to me. Mom's assigned series was Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer, which we're both really enjoying. Kyle's never read Harry Potter before, so he's been reading that to me. While they read, I would often slip in and out of sleep, but that's ok 'cuz I know both storylines. They were still entertaining, though, and it's just very comforting to hear the voices of loved ones. (This is why I kept asking Tianna for "stories" when I first went in; it's just very good to hear people sometimes. I'm not sure I can explain it properly.)
• 2 or 3 times a day, someone from respiratory would come in and check on my breathing exercises. My lung capacity went waaaaaaaaaaaay down after each surgery, and I have a little doodah called an incentive spirometer I'm using to re-expand them. It measures how far my lungs are expanding when I breathe in, and I'm making great progress. The last few days I was in the hospital, they also had a tube with a stream of air coming out that I was supposed to exhale against. This one was significantly less painful, and lots easier, but I realized after the first session that I didn't like it: it gave me a headache. Dunno why, but I always told the respiratory guys after that that I couldn't do it for very long; when veins started pulsing in my head, I was done. Fortunately, they didn't have a problem with this.
• Every hour or two throughout the day (and night!), I got my vitals checked. Blood pressure cuff, thing on my index finger to measure oxygen levels, temperature. Good times.
• Lunch was at noon, and dinner at 6 pm. I almost never wanted to eat, and I often groaned when the nurse came in with the food tray. 
• Oh, we can't forget the alarms! About a billion times a day, one of my IV's would freak out and start an alarm. This meant I had to hit my button to get a nurse, tell them I had an alarm going off, and then wait for what seemed like ages with this horribly loud, high-pitched beeping going on. This could be caused by any number of things: an upstream occlusion, a downstream occlusion, or the bag just being empty. Usually, the nurse just came in and fiddled with stuff until it was happy. They tended to happen in clusters, though, so I'd have to call the nurse back in 5 minutes. That was always fun for everyone present. [rolls eyes]
• Once I had been out of ICU the second time for a coupla days, they started wanting me to get up and walk around. At first, this was a major production. I required a wheelchair to load up all the stuff attached to me, as well as my IV pole, which I would then push around. Of course, I had to hunch to reach the wheelchair, so it didn't do as much to help expand my lungs as it could have. Things got easier as they continued to remove tubes and such, though, and I was soon down to just the IV pole. Then Kyle could just walk with me around the floor, holding my hand or with an arm around my waist to support me, while I pushed the IV pole with my other hand. This also made it easier to go several times a day, and we eventually got up to 3 walks a day (though they were never very long). I remember being very excited when I finally got rid of all my IV's and everything; this made the walking even better.
• Like I said, Mom would usually leave around 9, then Kyle around 10 or 11, after tucking me in for the night. Of course, I never stayed tucked in: I had to get up in the night several times to go to the bathroom, and nurses continued to come in every coupla hours to check my vitals or hang a new IV bag. I actually didn't mind the interruptions too much, though, since I was generally having really bad nightmares, from which I awoke in a cold sweat, sheets and gown all soaked. Nights weren't my favorite time. (They're getting better, though. Since I'm home now, nurses are no longer waking me up all the time. I still wake up several times every night, but I sleep longer and longer almost every night. The nightmares have gotten lots better, too, since I'm on a lot less drugs. Hopefully, once I get off the lortab, my sleeping will get back to normal.)

Believe it or not, I was actually quite leery of leaving the hospital and coming home. I had thought I'd be further in my recovery than I was, and I was scared because I still couldn't function as a normal human being. There are so many things I still can't do, and that terrified me. But Mom's here and taking very good care of me. Kyle's here all day every day, too, so between the two of them, I'm managing just fine. I dunno what I would have done otherwise. Just imagine all the normal everyday stuff that you do, and realize that anything that requires you to stand for more than 5 minutes is out for me. I can't cook, I can't clean. I can't do laundry. At first, I couldn't even carry my stuff from my bedroom to the living room; it took all my energy just to move me. But I'm getting stronger every day, and I think I may survive when Mom goes home this weekend. I'll still need lots of help, but I've got the best friends in the world, so I'm not too worried. :)

Follow-up

I had my first follow-up visit with Dr. Gibb (the ENT surgeon) yesterday. He looked at my neck incisions, which are healing nicely. An internal stitch had worked its way to the surface, so he pulled it out. That sorta thing. He said it all looks good. Yay!

I mentioned how tired I am, and Dr. Gibb says it'll be 6 months before I'm back to 100%. 6 months! That's a long time. I mean, I'll be up and going long before then, I'm sure. But still. That'd be July! They must've really done a number on me.

Oh, he was also able to explain the numb patch! I hadn't expected him to; I figured it was a question for Dr. McCann, the thoracic surgeon. But I asked anyway, and Dr. Gibb said it's from the incision on my back. This didn't make sense to me, since the numb patch, which is about 6" x 4", is on the front of my ribcage. But he explained that those nerves come out from your spine and wrap around your side to the front, all the way to the middle. So a nerve that was cut on my back would cause numbness like I'm experiencing. But he said it will gradually shrink and disappear. Which is very good, because it's super annoying. I can feel pressure on the muscles and such underneath, but the skin is totally numb. So I'm glad that'll go away, even if, like everything else, it's gonna take ages. [sigh]

I: I WAS GONNA DIE!!!

I'm still trying to get my head around how close I came to dying. It didn't seem like that big of a deal. Even when I was being rushed into my first emergency surgery and Dr. Gibb, the ENT surgeon, said that it was a real emergency and life-threatening and all, I was also assured I was gonna be just fine. So I wasn't too concerned. Nervous, sure, but not really worried about my long-term fate. And before the second (also emergency) surgery, nobody said anything to me about how my white count was high, so the infection may have spread...the first I heard about there being a problem was when they told me I was going to have to have another surgery. 

Of course, this all makes perfect sense; I totally understand why they didn't want me worried or scared or less than completely optimistic about everything. But it made for a major shock when things started coming out later on! Dr. Gibb told Kyle after the second surgery that I had a 75% chance of living. Dr. McCann, the thoracic surgeon who did most of the second surgery, told me on the day I was discharged that he had given me 50%. (Including me, he'd seen 4 patients in the same situation, and the two older ones both died.) Again, I understand why they weren't up-front about this information with me, but it gives me this lurking feeling that stuff was being hidden from me. 

It's also affected my feelings about my recovery. About a week and a half after the second surgery, just a few days before I got out, I had a horrible day. I'd slept miserably the night before (probably b/c they took away my morphine drip) and was nauseous and sick all day (we decided this was b/c of the darvocet I'd started taking instead of the morphine; I got better once it was out of my system, and we found different pain meds, thank goodness). I started out by throwing up the one bite of breakfast I took, and my throat was sore and I was having trouble swallowing and I was scared that things were getting worse again. The nurse got yet another doctor (he was one of my surgeons' partners, so he knew my case, even though we hadn't met) to come talk to me. He got me some nausea meds, but I think he got a wee bit frustrated with my apparent expectations for my recovery. "Of course your throat hurts! They scraped your esophagus raw from your throat to your stomach! YOU WERE GONNA DIE." Okay, so he didn't actually yell. But he spoke quite forcefully. (And yes, it's possible that I've started using this as an excuse for all sorts of things. "I can't say the prayer for dinner! I WAS GONNA DIE!") 

But it really has been helpful for me to try and understand the severity of what I went through. It helps me to be patient with my body as it's taking ages to recover. Seriously, showers wear me out. It's just too long for me to stand up. (Though I have progressed to where I can shower and still have enough energy to dress myself. For a long time, I'd stagger out of the bathroom and Mom would help me get dressed after I'd collapsed on the bed for a while. Pathetic, I know, but I think it gives you an idea of just how outrageously weak I am these days.) And I was all kinds of proud of myself when I managed to heat up my own lunch. Yes, I put food from 3 different containers onto a plate and microwaved it. Sadly, this was a milestone. So I just keep reminding myself: I was gonna die! And yes, it actually comforts me, in an extremely bizarre way.

Adventure Overview

I've been out of the hospital for a week and a day now, so I guess it's about time I got some blogging done! I've been planning it out in my head for quite a while now, but I've just been too dang tired to do anything about it. So here goes!

Tianna and Kyle have already blogged about this, so I'm gonna let their posts cover the general storyline. Tianna didn't blog 'til I got home, so she has one huge post you can read. Or, for more of a play-by-play, you can see Kyle's posts for 1/13, 1/15, 1/16, 1/17, 1/21, 1/24, and 1/26 (poor guy was spending all his time at the hospital with me, so the posts get signigicantly shorter as he got more and more exhausted). So that should cover the basic storyline, and I figured I'd just add my personal thoughts and reflections on the whole thing, rather than retelling exactly what has already been told twice.

I started just writing out all the stuff I wanted to say, but it got really long really fast. So I've decided to break it up into several posts, just to make life simpler. So this first post is just an overview. I'll add my thoughts in upcoming posts. But first...

...A Quick Summary:

• 1/3 (Sat.): got a sore throat
• 1/6 (Tues.): went to Urgent Care, where they verified that it wasn't strep and sent me home
• 1/12 (Mon.): went back to Urgent Care, had a CT done, and was eventually admitted at UVRMC for emergency surgery to drain an abscess in my neck
• 1/13 (Tues.): got out of ICU
• 1/15 (Thurs.): had a second emergency surgery b/c the infection had spread into my chest cavity (yes, instead of going to the symphony!)
• 1/20 (Tues.): got out of ICU again
• 1/26 (Mon.): came home, after exactly 2 weeks in the hospital

Inventory, after the second surgery:

• 3 drainage tubes in my neck, one in my left side, and 3 in my right side
  
• a tube down my mouth for the ventilator and another tube up my nose and down into my stomach (for the record, I don't recommend either of these; they were miserable)
• a catheter
• a central line (the creation of which felt like they were grinding something into my collarbone—not fun) (a couple of days later, they took out the central line and added a PICC line instead)
• 2 IV's (one in my arm and one in my wrist), which were hooked up to all kinds of things
• a telemetry device of some kind (a box attached to several (6?) stickies all over me to track my heart rate and such)
• (if I was braver, I'd post a picture; the number of tubes and wires and machines is quite impressive) [Edit: I gave in to peer pressure and created this post.]
  

Now that I'm home and healing, I have:

• 2 incisions on my neck, each about 2.5" long (I'm accepting submissions for the awesomest explanation! my current favs are a saber-tooth tiger attack and/or a voice transplant)
• 4 holes from chest tubes, 1 on the left and 3 on the right
• 1 incision on my left back, about 1.5", from the VATS
• 1 incision on my right back, a good 6" long, from the thoracotomy (this is the one that really hurts!)
• a giant numb patch on my right ribcage, about 6" wide (from my sternum to my side) and 4" tall