Sunday MopUp 03/09/08

Whoa, here I am, with a shaved belly and suture thread hanging off of me, all post-op an' shit! Welcome to my sorta-regularly featured Sunday MopUp, where I usually sit back with a fresh cup of coffee or four and spout off about my previous week, while I bounce around the house doing various cleaning chores in between. Today, there will be no caffeine or bouncing around because I am still fairly fragile feeling, and just the IDEA of coffee makes me feel a little queasy, so I'm gonna pass on it.

Houston Bound

My buddy, Sexual Chocolate, and I left for Houston Thursday evening just after 6PM. He agreed to drive me there and back. What I didn't expect was the ribbing I took for owning a Ford F-150. Why do people hate Fords so much? I love my truck. I have driven Fords for years, and they have always been reliable. I don't get it.

When we hit Houston, we found a BBQ place for dinner. I had a quarter pound of brisket and a quarter pound (count em: 2!) of pork ribs. It was The Last Supper for me. No sides or anything, just the meat. It was very tasty stuff.

We checked into the Homestead Suites, where we shared a queen-sized bed and two of the flattest freaking pillows known to man. We weren't very comfortable. 'Round about midnight, I started to panic a little bit about the inevitability of it all. SC tried to comfort me. He gave me a back rub. He rubbed on my butt. He's a horn dawg, but was on his best behavior.

The Day Of Surgery

We were up at 7AM, since I had to check in by 9AM. We were checked in by a quarter to 9 and sat in the room until nearly 10 before I insisted that SC take off and have a day of his own. He swapped phone numbers with the Nurse's Station and was gone, which was what I wanted. I wanted to be alone. This was all about me, and I didn't want to have to worry about how anyone else was doing. It's just how I am built. I get all introverted.

My surgery was scheduled for 11AM, but by then, I hadn't even made it to Pre-Op. I finally went into Pre-Op at about noon. I met all sorts of administrative types who made me sign a buttload of papers. It took three different nurses about 30 minutes to finally get an iv into me. I had no veins, it seemed.

A whole crew of doctor types came by to meet me. Everyone asked the same friggin' questions. Allergies? Previous surgeries? Fake teeth? I was becoming annoyed. My surgeon showed up and asked me, since it was so late in the day, if I would like to spend the night in the hospital, rather than being discharged right away. I hemmed and hawed, and he said we could talk about it later.

At around 2:30PM, I finally got rolled into the OR. I huffed some pure oxygen, and they hit me with the juice. I was out instantly.

When I woke up, I was in Post-Op. It was around 5PM and I was whisked away to a private room. So much for the discussion about staying, I simply was. No biggie. This way, Sexual Chocolate had the suite to himself, out there in the real world. Had to be easier on him as well.

(Found out later that he used the night to go check out a gay bar in Houston called "Ripcord". Says he didn't get laid. Yeah, whatever. Heh.)

I slept. When I awoke here and there, I was surprised at my lack of pain. Really. The nurse made me get out of bed at 10PM and walk around the main hallway of the floor. Two laps. I was a little unsteady at first, but was chugging right along by the end.

The Next Day

I was checked on every two hours all night long. I think it's a little sadistic to do this to people who are trying to recover from a surgery.

At 4AM, I was roused to walk some more. I blasted down the hall at almost a gallop. I was angry that they woke me up again. I'm a heavy sleeper and don't wake up all sweetness and light, okay?

At 8AM I wanted to get the hell out. I contacted SC and told him to pack our crap from the motel room, pay the chickiepoo at the front desk and haul ass over to the hospital. Of course, I couldn't be discharged until I saw the doctor.

The surgeon dropped by at 9AM. He looked at my wounds and congratulated me on a smooth and successful surgery. I was instructed to call his office on Monday to make a follow-up appointment, given a shotglass from which to drink for the next week (no more clear fluids than 2 ounces an hour!) and told to scram.

We bolted. Was back in Austin by 1PM and I could not crawl into bed fast enough. CS unpacked the truck and asked what else he could do. I sent him home. I wanted to sleep. By myself.

I've been sleeping ever since.

I'm not in any kind of real pain, although my stomach DOES feel constricted. Like how you'd feel several days after being punched in the gut.

I have no appetite. I'm sipping on the chocolate protein drinks I have stockpiled from the weight loss program, and will live on them until I'm told I can advance to pureed foods. The process of re-feeding will take weeks.

Also, Although the band is in and ON, it hasn't yet been filled with saline to create the small hole at the base of the new "pouch" at the top of my stomach. That "fill" will happen in about 4 weeks. I'm sure I'll give you all the gruesome details as they develop.

Well, this wasn't all that entertaining, but I just wanted to give ya a blow-by-blow of the process. I'll try to be funny or interesting later.