Post-surgery, day 1

The good news: I feel a lot better than I did yesterday. The bad news: I have a slight fever. No one is thinking infection thoughts yet but blaming it on the trauma my body endured yesterday. We took every precaution, including 2 bags of antibiotics via IV (Levaquin and my old friend Vancomycin) and a thorough pre-surgery scrub-down, with enough betadine to cover a small village, applied by 2 nurses and the good doctor himself. Yes, he scrubbed me down with betadine himself. How’s that for red-carpet service? More on that later; you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced something like that.

Long story short, the surgery was successful and the after-effects are manageable. I’m not going to lie and say I feel great, but I’m not barfing any more, so progress is being made. I was trying to figure out, though, why I feel so crappy considering this is the easiest surgery to date; then I realized it’s because for all the other surgeries, I’ve been in the hospital with a morphine pump and shots of morphine in my booty. That’s the difference.

My doc changed his game plan just before going into the OR: instead of taking fat from my inner thighs to plump up my collapsed chest, he went for the “flank” area which is more commonly known as ye olde saddlebags. I’ve got about half a dozen incisions that are stitched up on my flanks and chest, and two “poke holes” near my hips that he left unstitched so they can drain. Lots and lots of bruising. I look like I was run over repeatedly by a Hummer, and feel like it too. Nothing unexpected, though.

I’m not certain because I was pretty groggy, but I think we got home about 3:00 yesterday, and I started barfing shortly thereafter. Being an all-or-nothing kind of girl, I kept it up until bedtime. I will admit to a momentary panic when I couldn’t keep down Jello or a banana, but realized that food plus moving around was problematic. Stop moving, stop barfing. I like simplicity. One I settled in bed, I was still queasy but not barfing.

I have already been to see the good doctor and we are both very pleased with his handiwork. He’s not so pleased with the fever, but no one is in panic mode just yet. We’re in watch-it-and-see mode. Fingers crossed, of course. I’ll see him again tomorrow morning and will hopefully be fever-free.