Well, today has been a pretty good day! Got up at a respectable hour, 7:30. Did some of what my husband calls "girl cleaning." Vacuumed all of upstairs including under a couple of beds that really needed it! Also did a small amount of machine quilting.
The hair continues to fall out in small quantities, but my scalp is starting to hurt just a bit, which I was told is an indicator it's about to go. It will be a sad day when I have to shave my head, but I know it's only temporary! It will likely be back by sometime early next year. Then I get to see what my natural color really is! That's kind of fun!
Okay, back to the day of surgery. What a long day that was. I was all cleaned out and couldn't eat, but had to do a CT scan and be at the hospital for it at 7:30. That meant I had to get up at 6:00am to drink the barium. Yummo! On an empty stomach no less! It was less than appealing, but I got through it! Once that was all done, we had a long wait until the scheduled surgery time of 6:15pm. We mostly sat around the room and napped, watched TV, played games and generally fretted. It's hard to get control of one's emotions and fears at a time like that. We prayed a lot too. And I know we were being prayed for. We headed over to the hospital by way of Longs (to pick up prescriptions) a bit early. Got to Short Stay and got checked in. Ilene, the nurse assigned to me was a TALKER. I had asked her to get me on the IV early so they could give me a little something to "eat." I was a bit shaky. She talked at least 45 minutes about how she needed to get my IV in before she actually did it. But she had a good heart and I think was trying to distract me. Then, by her own admittance, she forgot to give me the Vercet until only about 10 minutes before they took me into surgery. She could have given it to me right away, but again, I got through and it just wasn't meant to be...
I believe they rolled me into surgery pretty much right on time. I was so happy to be getting that thing out of me! The next thing I remember was Kate saying something in my ear to the affect "Melanie, it's your lucky day, you just have Lymphoma!" She was so upbeat about it with Pete, he didn't even think it was cancer! So, I remember being awake then and then not again until I woke up in my room. My bed was in a mostly upright position and I remember waking up, looking at Pete and seeing stars. I told him I was dizzy and watched him get up immediately and go tell the nurse. I personally wouldn't have given it another thought. I assumed it was just part of the process of coming off a general anesthesia. But it wasn't.
Later, I was told by another nurse that this was all happening around the nurses shift change at 11:00pm. They take this time to bring the relieving shift up to date on each of their patients. She told me that my call was "put into the queue." This nurse, her name was Lisa, I believe, had finished updating her relief and was walking down the hall and saw my light on and decided to check in on me. As soon as she took one look at me she knew I was in trouble and went out and got my nurse. She said she felt certain had it waited until the shift change was over, I would have been gone! Certainly, the Lord was watching over me!
Tomorrow I will share what September 19 was like!! And I may or may not have my hair by then!!
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