Wednesday, September 4, 2013

And my world goes 'round again....

So, how am I?  How was the surgery?  How is the recovery?  Is it what I expected?

I am just now writing after a week...that should be your first clue.

But, I suppose that I should begin with my expectations.  Based on my research, and advice from friends, I really didn't know what exactly to expect, because as we know in this house, all too well, "Everyone is different...it all depends."  Some warned me to be prepared for 2 days to generally recover, some 2 weeks.   All, however, advised me to keep ahead of the pain with narcotics.  Okey dokey.

I sort of expected that I would feel pretty crappy over the weekend, and I was not disappointed.  I have had four children, and have bounced back well from each of these deliveries, so I thought that I would recover from this pretty quickly with this too.  I gave myself until Monday for drugs. 

Monday, I took less drugs, but as I got tired, and started feeling crappy, I took another Percocet and went to bed, which seemed like a sound decision.  I was still sore, but my incisions were looking good...the bruises had become green and yellow, a vast improvement over the black that they were. I knew that each day would be better. This part was pretty much to my expectations.

My concern though, was the headaches that I kept getting.  Over the weekend, I thought maybe I was getting a sinus infection. As the week began with the same headache, I became concerned that it was perhaps narcotic withdrawal. I should mention that despite the fact that this is more than the 10th surgery in 2 years in this household, we do not have a lot of experience with narcotics.  My kids just don't take them outside of the hospital setting. Hell, Brent hardly takes them outside of the OR anymore, tough cookie that he is.

My sister actually said to me in the hospital, "Don't try to be Brent...take the drugs!" Okey dokey.

But these screaming headaches, that Tylenol didn't begin to touch, this is not what Percocet was prescribed for.  By today, I called my OB's office, assured them that I had no concerns about infection, explained that my abdominal tenderness was improving, but inquired about the headaches.  I was hurting pretty bad.  Like an ice pick in the eyeball kind of bad.  I thought about amputation...at the neck.

My choices per my OB were:

1. Go to the ER for evaluation. (ummm...I cannot drive yet because of that surgery thing last week, and I was fairly certain that I was not looking an aneurism, or brain tumor, although with LFS, weird things do happen.  For example, I personally know 2 different people who are left with half a pancreas.  TWO. How many do you know? With LFS, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility, and I would not presume to know the limits of Gods sense of irony with regard to our family.)

2.  I could wait 2 hours and then take 2 more Percocet, to try to knock out the headache completely, as though it were a migraine. Stay in the dark, keep it quiet.  I have never had migraines, but thought this might be hormone, or lack of hormone driven change.  Also a contender.

3. Or, I could try coffee.

Clouds part, the sun shines, angels sing in jubilation.

If my brain were firing on all synapses, I would have figured this out sooner.  I drink coffee every day. Truth be told, quite a bit of coffee.  I hadn't had but half a cup since last Thursday because my stomach is queasy, which coffee would aggravate. And, I keep taking drugs that make me only want to nap, because my head hurts so much.  You are noticing the vicious cycle too?

I brewed up a pot, took some Zofran, washed it down with a cup of Joe, and Bob's your uncle.  I feel like a million bucks.  It wasn't narcotic withdrawal, or surgery, but caffeine withdrawal that was kicking my butt.  Yes, I am done with the Percocet now.  :)

All of the questions I had to answer about vitamins, prior experience with anesthesia, health history, cancer...blah, blah...nothing about my caffeine intake, which is probably not medically relevant generally speaking.  But, I think that the last time I 'quit' coffee was when I was pregnant with Olivia.  She is 5.  Both she and coffee make my world go 'round.

So, the moral of the story, boys and girls, is that you should call your doc right away if things seem at all wonky.

And drink lots of coffee. 




I

2 comments:

  1. Maybe you should just pop coffee beans like vitamins! Bahahaha! Glad you're feeling better and off the narcotics :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, anonymous smartypants, but you will have to get in the snark line behind my son.

    When Alex got home from band and soccer last night, he commented about how much better I looked and sounded. I shared the details of my day with him, whereupon he observed "So, the only way that you could comfortably be off of coffee was with the help of narcotics?? Coffee is a gateway drug...who knew?"

    Wait until I find his DARE officer.

    And then I was up most of the night, all hopped up on caffeine that I hadn't had in a week. It is like that sometimes! :) But yes, feeling much better!

    ReplyDelete