120%! to the max!

I have gotten some grief from certain friends, who will remain named right here: Jami, Ed and Lauren, about not formally ending this blog with a message about my full recovery. Well, without further ado.... I must report that I have reached the highest physical achievement! I can now do the entire Hip Hop Abs routine from disc 2!!!!!! Although I wouldn't describe my abs as "hip hop" I would atleast put them in the category of "square dance". Anyway, to any and all that have read this for weeks, stopped reading, checked back once or twice to see if I fell off the edge of the earth, and then completely forgot about it: THANK YOU! I will read your blog if you go into the hospital. Love, Lauren

Today is a Day, a Mon-Day

I am all on my own. No nurses. No nothin. I started my day off delivering a small box to a UPS pick-up station a few blocks away, and decided to turn my walking excursion into shopping trip. I thrift shopped till I felt an oceanic wave of tiredness hit me, then I scurried across the street to get soup and contact solution. I eyed every single bench the entire way home, wondering if I was going to make it.
Walking through the park I saw a seagull completely tearing apart a dead pigeon.
I ate. Then I took a long nap with the man-cat.

Scritchy....Scritchy, Scritchy

Surgeon inspected, surgeon approved. The tape is off, and this discreet wound now begs to be scratched more than ever! How can it be numb, asleep really, yet so demanding? It sits there like a miniature mountain ridge of skin, slightly jagged and imperfect. Bumpy. Pink and black.
I am taking less and less pain medication, trying to feel what healing feels like. I feel uncomfortable taking so many pills, so I keep trying to "kick my habit" only to be reminded that healing feels like being mildly electrocuted in the stomach every 20 seconds while carrying 8 lbs of bricks on your shoulders and mourning the loss of something vague.

I have spent most of the day upright- sitting, walking... even climbing the driveway, which seems to ascend straight into the sky. It took me several minutes, and I kept hoping none of my neighbors were witnessing this ridiculous feat. I took a nice walk and met Christina for coffee at the new bookstore in our neighborhood. I love a good Tuesday morning. It feels like I am cutting school still!

Tonight Brian & Brian are making sushi for dinner. The room service around here keeps getting better.

Food for Thought for Food

Apparently I ruined my cousin Kevin's appetite with those pictures yesterday. He has such a sensitivity about things like that!


I still have not seen my scar, which is hidden under 12 vertical strips of tape. It is becoming rather itchy, and goes through periods of being totally numb. My belly can't decide if it is a balloon or a loaf of bread.

Today I had a lovely visit with Jessica, complete with flowers and cookies! We went down to the lake for a walk, and caught a glimpse of my favorite black duck. He dried his feathers off right in front of us. Between that and The L Word, I am up to my ears in excitement!

AVERT YOUR EYES If You Do Not Like Flesh Pods!

before...

during...
pic 1: my fibroid filled uterus, alongside another pedunculated
fibroid (while still attached to my body!)
pic 2: the whole cast of characters removed from my abdomen,
ranging from pineapple to wasabi pea
CLICK TO ENLARGE!

after...

Still on a strict fashion diet of house dresses and drawstring
waistbands, and still gettin' into trouble!

Chocolate Cake in Grama's Bed

I'm humbled by the fact that the success of my day depends on my GI tract's ability to function. I spent most of the day under blankets and a heating pad in my Grama's bed. My Aunt Jane, Grama and Mom were lovely enough to join me in the bedroom and even serve chocolate cake and coffee there. And when I arrived home, Meerkat Manor Season 1 had magically arrived in my mailbox! Thanks Darcy and Victor! I look forward to neither laughing nor crying as best I can.
Anyway, this shit is tiring. That's all for today.

Catch Me If You Can

I spent more of the day out of the apartment than in bed! How's that for recovery? If I were a Girl Scout, I would have earned my badge in the following today:
1. Bird Whispering
2. Vicadin Obtaining
3. Looking your Best (a real GS badge that I really did earn... had to do with brushing my hair a hundred times, doing nails, wearing mom's make-up, etc.)
5. Cheese Eating
6. Electric Blanket Wearing
7. Crosswording
8. Caffeine Exploration
9. Comic Book Appreciation

I have kept my bracelet from the hospital on my wrist, I guess as a sort of sentimental notion or badge of courage or something... but over the last few days all of the information on this bracelet has completely disappeared. Now it is just white.

Bad Idea

Today I did a little experiment to see if my pain killers were really working or not so I let them wear off. They really work.

My NEW Nurses Prescribe Beer, Fruit & American Pride

I have been pecking away at food for days, since Thursday to be exact. That is 4 days. It has been going in, but it has not been coming out... do not stop reading, please... so in response to my frustration about this, my new nurses Brian and Suzanne concocted the best plan ever: Prescription Beer!

I will just say that less than 12 oz. of Prescription Beer produced amazing results that other prescriptions couldn't... or wouldn't dare! I am now on par with infants everywhere! I never thought of beer as a multi-purpose drink before. My nurses will probably not refill my prescription on a nightly basis, unfortunately. But you should toast to a medical miracle!

Today I took a walk with my mom and watched Ruthless People on VHS (Hyper-80's Bette Midler gets completely fanatical about exercising while she is held captive for ransom to super-rich husband Danny DeVito (who wants the kidnappers to kill her, and is awesome as usual) while a host of other familiar 80's faces completely misunderstand each other andcheat on each other. They don't make 'em like this anymore!

Sometime in the afternoon I got TWO gigantic edible fruit arrangements delivered to my front door! Brian's parents and my Aunt Jane and Grama think alike! So awesome! My mom and I made smoothies for lunch with 'em, and realized that we are going to have to eat fruit for every meal unless we get some help!! Please help us eat this bounty, we would love to share.... think smoothie , fresh juice, or fruit on a stick! It is funny to replace one metaphorical medical "fruit basket", with another very literal and delicious fruit basket. OMG... we just realized that the entire bouquet is edible-- even the leaves (kale) and the core (a whole head of lettuce)! Crazy! So, you should come over for a salad, too!

At 5:30 this evening I took a shower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was my first shower in 6 days. I feel like Michael Phelps! Yes!

On that note, I will sign off for today. Do not hesistate to call or stop over, and do not feel bad if you don't. I have been into playing cards and games lately for as long as I can stay sitting up. I'm getting up to watch the inauguration tomorrow and I plan to have some kind of patriotic discourse in some form or another. Maybe I will pay my credit card bill's minimum payment!! Or file for state disability!!

So, have a great day!

day one in echo park

My mom helped me set up a lovely two tiered bedside tray by my bed (couch) with all kinds of activities for my eyes and brain, plus drugs, water, and a heating pad. We are watching the Eagles get their asses handed to them (it's only 2nd quarter, so....?) and it is in the 80's! I had visitors this morning, my Aunt Jane and Uncle Ken and their friend Leif, who brought a bag full of great recovery gifts, including homemade beef'n'barley stew!

I am starting to recognize my pattern of severe pain seems to come before and after sleep, and at about the 3.5 hr mark into the Percaset journey. In a matter of minutes I turn from a well-tempered young lady into a groaning, shivering, crabby elderly woman who cannot move without agonizing pain. It doesn't last... but still. Yeah. Yuck.

Otherwise I'm having a pretty good day. I took a short walk with my mom at the park. We had to literally drive down the driveway with me strapped in the seatbelt under a pillow, and park at Echo Park Lake, which I can totally see (and hear) from my front door. The walk was very slow, and gave us time to look at all the birds in great detail. Using a cane. Somewhat out of breath. Not moving out of the way for joggers and skateboarders. They can deal!

I have been released!

So, I was released from the hospital this afternoon!

Since Wednesday things seemed to move at the most rapid pace:
11:00 Sign tons of papers. Name Brian as my guardian in Advance Directive using a stranger in waiting room as a witness. 11:45 Escorted "behind the scenes" alone, with just the clothes on my back. Pre-op meetings with surgeon, nurse, residents and anaesthesiologist while laying on a cot in booties and a hairnet with a bundle of nerves... IV drip....electric leg massagers... mild sedative.... nerves and pizza cravings replaced by vague fondness for being wheeled around the hospital and getting an excited girls-night-out feeling in the operating room. I may have even said something to the effect of "This is going to be great!" I didn't even have to count backwards, I just nodded right off.

The next 24 hours were a little slower. I woke up in the recovery room full of suffering pathetic people with no qualms about it. The girl accross the room screamed "JUST LET ME DIE!!!!!!!" at the top of her lungs for atleast 15 minutes until something finally kicked in. I sounded like I was a whimpering dog doing la maz. Everything was hazy and they told me they couldn't find my boyfriend, so I was an a mild panic. Meanwhile Brian was in the waiting room, and somehow got roped into answering the phones at the front desk because the receptionist had gotten off work. He was literally calling out family's names to go in to visit their loved one, awaiting the call about me. I have no idea how that went down, but in my head it is slapstick comedy!

So, he finally came back, held my hand and talked to me in a low voice about things I don't remember, and alerted me to the fact that there were like 25 hot blankets piled on top of me. It was true. We peeled off some layers, and I started to feel a little less horrible as my Dilaudid started marching through my blood stream. Every 8 minutes I was aloud to get more, AND NO SOONER. Oy! I was jammin' up that button every time I took a breath.

Around 7pm I got wheeled into my room, which to my surprise was a lovely little single room, with a window and a cot for Brian, plus a bathroom with shower! Ice chips. Chapstick. Delaudid. Repeat. No sleep. Lots of mindless tv and people coming in to check vital signs. Very out of it, but on a pain free cloud for most of the awake moments. At 5 am, a suitcase bearing man with needles and elastic bands drew blood with very stunted verbal indications of what he was doing. Little did I know this started a trend of hospital "vampires" who seem to draw blood in the wee hours of the night, with no bother for socializing or empathy. I asked almost every one of them what my blood type was and they all responded with a look like "who do you think I am? a blood specialist?". I finally found out today that I am B-positive.....B+.... almost perfect, but not quite an A.

I'm getting tired thinking about this next morning.... I emerged from the night with very little sleep. My brain was floating in my head, disconnected to my mouth, and my ears made everything sound like it was in a long tunnel far away. My eyes added a heavy haze to all things around me. I was fucked up. Several nurses came thru asking questions that I just could not keep up with. I knew they were talking to me and I could see them, but I could not form answers to their questions. Brian, being a saint, slept on a cot beside me that was the exact same size as his body. He was up all night helping with little things, and gathered my condition from things I had told him throughout the night. He became my translator. I sat in bed crying my eyes out, and looked at him and he told the doctor that this pain killer drip was making me crazy and confused, and possibly deaf and blind(my words). I was blowing my nose on my hand. They were taking the one IV out of my arm, and I was just sitting there crying and grabbing my bandaged stomach because crying was ridiculously painful. I thought they were taking all my drugs away because I had been bad. Brian somehow translated back to me that they were giving me Percaset pills that would take away pain, and maybe help with the river of tears K-hole situation as well.

From that point on, it's almost boring to tell how I actually began recouperating and making progress in leaps and bounds. The percasets did the trick. I got the catheter out Thursday afternoon. Took a very challenging bird bath. Walked about 20 feet, concentrating on every step, with quite a hunch back.

I met with Dr. Bhadauria who showed me pictures of the fibroids she removed. These pictures really blew me away: there were 5 fibroids, one about the size of a pineapple, all the way down to what Brian called a wasabi pea. They were removed through a scar that's maybe 7 inches long. They were all in my uterus, except the one that was in front of my ovary. There was no ovarian cyst (as 3 ultrasounds had reported existing.) Great news- no cancer. Nonetheless, weird how 3 different radiologists had come to the same wrong conclusion. You have to see these pictures, though! Horror films are based on these things coming alive.

So, the only other remarkable thing happened on Friday. After another night of tough love from the nurses and severe abdominal pain not conquered by 2 percasets and Ibuprofin 600... i finally farted! This got me some love from the nurses who were practically hi-fiving me. It was so awesome. The best fart I ever made! And pretty much the reason I was allowed to leave the hospital. I am sorry if this ruins your view of me, but in patient-world, this is a valiant and respected thing to do. A real rite of passage. I could have pudding! Parties! Whatever!

I am pretty exhausted right now, but I must add that my initial recovery in the hospital has been so amazingly aided by the phone calls, visits and flowers I received. I did not expect such a shower of love, and I was moved to tears (in a lovely way) several times because I felt so cared for. It really helped me put on a nice dress and try to do a lap around the hospital floor with purpose. That made a really big psychological difference for me, and I think the nurses liked the drugged-up fashion show "skiing" thru the halls. Thank you!

So, I am in high spirits. My mom just got to town and I have lots of time on my hands! I am gladly accepting visitors and phone calls and I am glad to be home again!!!

Myomectomy, Cystectomy, What the @#?>ectomy!?

Hi there! I'm making this little old blog to document my upcoming abdominal surgery and life as a patient and young lady in the 21st century! On January 14th I will be checking in to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills, California (4 days, 3 night stay! No pool.) to undergo surgery to remove a minimum of 2 large fibroids in my uterus (think: mango and lime)(salsa) and a cyst in my right ovary(fig). It appears that my reproductive system is quite eager and has been making little fruits, but unfortunately they are quite uncomfortable and in constant battle for space with some of those juicy organs I appreciate so much. Thus the surgery to remove them, and a 6-8 week recovery at home.

So, I invite you, my dear friends and family to check in to read and/or post things during my recovery. I am a bit nervous, and not completely sure what to expect, but I plan to write each day once I return home from the hospital. This is the craziest way I've ever started off a New Year, but I promise to channel the insights that only major-league painkillers can offer!

Thanks! XO!