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.