First of all - Dave was at my side throughout this entire hospital stay. He slept in a chair in the corner. I don't know how he did this and he has got to be exhausted. I was awoken every hour throughout the nights for pain meds, vitals, Doppler on the transplant, Heparin shots, draining my tubes, etc. For me, sleep came easy because I was constantly in a drugged state. I don't know how Dave was able to sleep through all that. He was trying to understand everything that was happening with me and ask a million questions. At that point, I didn't care about anything - so I am beyond grateful for Dave. And, yes, he probably could pass the medical boards by now. He has always had some doubts about people in the medical field, and some of our experiences just proved him right. But, there were also some extremely competent and caring people, and it was a breath of fresh air when they cared for me.
I don't remember much after the surgery. I went to a recovery room, but I think I may have been there a couple of hours. I have no recollection of that. The first thing I was able to remember was being wheeled from recovery to my room. And I was extremely "out of it" and severely motion sick. They handed me a little thing to throw up in. I was very hot and was begging to have the blankets and socks off me. Apparently, Dave took my socks off and I was trying to fling the blankets off. I remember looking down at my completely naked self and came to my senses a bit as I thought "omg, we're probably in the hallway, I should be covered!"
The next few hours was about managing my pain and nausea. These heavy drugs always kill me. I made it though the night and the next day they got me up to sit in a chair. On Saturday, I was able to take a "walk" (looking like a 124 year old woman) down the hall.
I had been suffering from a headache starting Saturday. It continued through the night and was much worse on Sunday. At that point I knew it was a migraine and I was back to feeling nausea from that. The nurses were trying their hardest to understand my pain level from the surgery, but my migraine trumped all that pain. When I had to rate my pain, I would say my abdomen was a 5 and my head was a 9. So, there I was, massacred from the surgery, but trying to get my head out of pain. It was at that point the the hospital fire alarm started going off. Which, as you can imagine, is terrible for a migraine.
I left that afternoon with drugs to try to manage my migraine - the car ride was a nightmare, but I had a puke bucket and ice pack.
Josh and Brea had prepped the kids well. They knew they could not maul me and were excitedly asking to see my tubes. When we got home, and I was showing them my stitches and tubes - I could tell that Will was thinking "wow, this was a mistake" but he hung in there to see everything.
It is late Sunday night. My migraine is still killing me. Super unfair at this point, but I guess it puts my other pain in perspective. The kids are sleeping and Dave is digging through their backpacks to understand all of the things they will need to do for preschool. The bus is picking them up at our house tomorrow morning. They are going start buying their lunches. Life is good.
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