6/7/13 Friday:  RELEASING THE MONSTER

On the morning of surgery I woke up at 3:30am, more than likely because someone came to take blood, my temperature, or my blood pressure. The nurse said they wanted to do an ultrasound on my legs before surgery to see if there were any more clots. They had scheduled me for 5:00am, but had asked if they could go ahead and get me early since they were very backed up. Since I was already awake, I didn’t mind at all, so I pulled out my iPad and checked emails until they came to get me. In reality it would be 5:00am before they actually got to my room.

Despite the fact that I was going to have major surgery later in the day, I felt great.  The song Safe and Sound (Capital Cities) was playing incessantly in my head. I had started hearing the song on the radio a few months earlier and loved it, and we heard it in the car on the way to our first meeting with Dr K. It was always in my head in the hospital, and the morning of surgery I played the YouTube video and posted it on my facebook wall page, asking everyone to play it and sing it while I was in surgery. It had become my own personal anthem.

Being in the hospital had made me start to think of the tumor as being something from the movie Alien. I have no idea why this was. I really didn’t have any bad feelings towards the thing, but I did keep envisioning that scene from the movie where the alien pops out of the guy’s stomach, slimy teeth and all. I started thinking of it as the Alien Monster Baby.

Dr L came by later in the morning. Dr L is very serious and very matter of fact. I made it my personal mission to catch Dr L off guard, ask him random questions, and make him laugh whenever I could.  Since I had just posted the Safe and Sound video as my personal anthem, I asked him if he listened to music in the operating room. He said sometimes, depending on the type of surgery and the procedure. I asked him what kind of music they played. He kind of smirked and said the technician played Top 40. I really wanted to ask him what kind of music HE listened to, but thought it might be too much.

He tried to escape, but I wasn’t done. When getting my ultrasound at 5:00am, and calculating how little sleep I had gotten (again), I had thought of another random question that would be perfect for Dr L: If I got three hours of sleep last night, and the surgery lasted five hours, would that count as my eight hours of sleep for the day? He shuffled and looked away nervously, laughed and said, “No, those are two completely different kinds of sleep,” and left as quickly as he could get out of the room.

Dr L is my very own personal Christina Yang from Grey’s Anatomy.

I felt anxious but also relieved that the tumor would soon be removed. I was tired of being in pain and tired of having no appetite. More than anything though, I was ready for a shower. The nurse disconnected my IVs and covered both forearms in plastic, taping them shut so no water could get into the IVs. That shower was the highlight of my hospital stay.

All taped up for my first shower.

After the shower the rest of the morning was spent relaxing with family before surgery, which was scheduled for 1:00pm. A doctor had come by earlier to initial the side of my abdomen where the affected ovary was located, and I was in good spirits.

I played Safe and Sound one last time before surgery. Another song played and we kept talking. The third song was Coldplay, Warning Sign. My son suddenly stood up and said, “Okay, I think I’ve had enough of the music.” I thought he just didn’t like Coldplay, but quickly realized he was crying. I looked over at Michael and his eyes were becoming red and he had a panicked look on his face. I diffused the situation as quickly as possible.

I texted my sister, who was in charge of offering comic relief while I was in surgery. My text said: Please hurry up and get here! The men are falling apart!!!

On the way to the pre-op room.

Eventually, my husband, my kids, my sister, and my friend Liz were all hustled upstairs to the pre-op room. Two anesthesiologists came in, then a third, to discuss the risks of anesthesiology and the decision not to have an epidural port put in because of the blood thinner, Lovenox, I was taking for the blood clots. I hadn’t been thrilled about the idea of having an epidural anyway, so I was relieved the option was off the table. Someone talked to me about donating part of my tumor for research, which I agreed to do if it could help someone else in the future, and I signed papers for that.

I told every doctor who came into the room not to give me any more IV’s unless I was asleep. I was pretty adamant about it. After having to have another IV put in for the CT scan, I was down on IV’s. I was tired of being hurt. I wanted to be sedated.

Lots of laughter before surgery.

It was like a party in the room. I had somehow morphed into a stand-up comedienne during my entire hospital stay, and I had no idea why. Maybe it was the pain meds, maybe it was nerves, or maybe just my way of coping, but my entire family and I were constantly cutting up and laughing. We were still going strong in the pre-op room, and I had to make everyone promise not to get us kicked out of the hospital while I was in surgery. I needed a room to come back to!

Dr K stopped by to initial my abdomen again (the previous doctor’s initials had come off in the shower) and to check in with me. When she left, I saw she had forgotten her marker on the table beside me. Oooohhh, very dangerous move on her part. The wheels started spinning and I asked the family what they thought about writing a little message or picture on my stomach for serious Dr L. Of course they jumped all over the idea and I quickly had to rein them back in from wanting to turn my abdomen into a graffiti filled billboard. I had my daughter draw a small smiley face and write “Hi Dr L!” underneath it.

Our little surprise for Dr L.

I had visions of him being so shocked he passed out in the operating room, so when he checked on me just before surgery I fessed up and told him what we’d done. He was genuinely delighted and amazed that we thought he needed to “lighten up.” I finally asked him what kind of music he likes to listen to and he said we “might be surprised.” Thinking he was going to say he liked country music (no way), he admitted he likes to listen to 70’s classic pop, like Neil Diamond. Not quite the Yo Yo Ma that I suspected (though he said he had seen him play in concert before), but not so surprising. I would have loved it if he had said he liked to listen to country music.

I apologized to my family for anything I might say after the surgery, before the anesthesia wore off. From the moment I entered the hospital I seemed to have no filter. I knew it could get me in trouble if I was zonked out on anesthesia and pain meds.

Things are getting real now.

My daughter’s flight from Portland was delayed 25 minutes, but as one o’clock came and went, and we learned that Dr K’s three small surgeries had taken longer than expected, we realized Dominique had a real shot at making it to the hospital before I went into surgery. Indeed, we got to spend almost an hour with her before they finally wheeled me out of the room around 4:30pm — three and a half hours after our planned time of 1:00pm.

Liz and Dominique looking worried as I’m wheeled away to surgery.

Saying goodbye to my family and Liz was strange. Everyone looked so worried. I had to keep reassuring them that everything would be okay — and I really meant it. I wasn’t worried at all and knew that I would be fine. I remember someone telling me they were going to give me something to relax me, me saying “good, I need that,” and someone putting a cap on my head and trying to shove my hair underneath it.

The last thing I remember is asking the doctors if they could sedate my husband so he would stop taking so many photographs.

On the way to surgery.

Nicole and Nick worrying during surgery.

In the next instant, my eyes were closed and Dr L was telling me that everyone saw our little joke on my belly and thought it was hilarious. The clock above my head said it was 10:30pm. How could that be? I was conscious but I could not for the life of me open my eyes. It was too much effort. My entire upper and lower abdomen was one huge white bandage. I had new IV’s on both wrists and arms. I had a hard plastic thing inserted under the skin below my left breast.

I don’t remember how I got back to my room. I do remember Michael leaning into me right after surgery telling me that we will be staying in Dallas for a long time, that I will have to see Dr K every three months for the rest of my life. I reassured him not to worry about that now. I wondered why he thought that was so important. I didn’t care where I lived as long as I was alive.

I was in my room surrounded by my family. I told them just because my eyes were closed didn’t mean I couldn’t hear them. I was alive. I was so out of it.

We stayed up talking and had “Family Therapy.” Dominique said I looked like the Dalai Lama sitting up high on his throne, eyes closed, dispensing clairvoyant information. We talked and talked. I told everyone some changes we needed to make as a family. Some things seemed crystal clear, others completely unimportant.

I knew the anesthesia was going to make me act weird. If there were any vestiges of my verbal filter left before the surgery it had been nuked out of existence once and for all by the time I got back to my room. Nothing seemed more important to me at that moment that getting my life in order and setting some things straight.

It was hard to talk. My mouth felt like it was one big cotton ball. Michael and the kids had to keep swabbing my mouth and gums with these little sponges on sticks that the nurse gave us. This cottony dryness lasted for days after the surgery and was very unpleasant.

We talked. We laughed. We cried. My family is so patient with me. I am bossy and selfish and they waited it out with me.

Finally, at 3:30am, I couldn’t stay awake any longer. My sister and the kids drove home and Michael slept on a cot in the room. Apparently I moaned a lot in my sleep. I remember having nightmares in my sleep, dreams of lions eviscerating another animal as I watched.

And for the record, the alien monster baby was officially 13.8 cm long and weighed half a pound.  We might have photos of the little beauty, twisted and ruptured in all his glory–but I’m pretty sure you won’t want to see them.

To be continued . . .