Saturday Musings - Post Edit

Thank you to the girl who posted a pic on Pinterest of Archie singing during conference. Front row close to the sisters. Must have missed him.

Saturday Musings

This week has been rough.  I contracted various infections and I think I got the flu virus on top of it all.  I felt like death.  Somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed and go to work all day, every day.  I didn't dare not to since I'd had the last 2 weeks off.  It was miserable.  The days dragged on and ON.  It was all I could do not to toss my cookies all day.  Never thought I'd say this, but luckily I'm not pregnant since I've been taking all sorts of narcotics and antibiotics.  I'm finally feeling better.  Random musings I've had recently:

1.  I loved Pres. Eyring's talk Saturday morning, it was amazing
2.  The MoTab's rendition of "Redeemer of Israel" was incredible.  I had to TiVo it back and watch again.
3.  I'm kind of disappointed David Archuleta wasn't in the MTC Choir during Saturday afternoon's session.
4.  The trees are blooming in our neighborhood.  They sure are pretty and really do look like "Popcorn Popping."  Unfortunately, they smell like poo.  Or worse than poo.
5.  I'm so grateful for the Gospel and truly have a testimony of a loving Heavenly Father who loves us and it very aware of our needs and plights.
6.  I love the little Church stories played on Channel 5 in between sessions.
7.  Excited for Girl's Night at Olive Garden and a craft afterward with the fam while the boys are at priesthood.
8.  I'm wearing jeans and not wanting to die for the first time today.
9.  Maggie decided to eat the insides of her bed today.  Luckily it's still soft and she's just going to have to deal.
10.  We found 3 (THREE!) spiders in our house yesterday.  One almost fell on my head.  We sprayed the door jambs with Raid.  That seems to work really well for us.  If things haven't improved in the next week, we're going to Bug Bomb the place.

Ok, I'm done.

Surgery Post-Op

Went in for my surgical post-op appointment. Got my steri-strips off. Wounds are healing nicely and are LITTLE. I can't even see the one in my belly button. Still have some stitches in one of the ports that should dissolve quickly. My right side is still killing me and is probably due to them going through the muscle and hitting some nerves. I have to go back in a month for my final follow up and they'll give me a shot of Lidocaine if it still hurts.

I've been released to go back to work (boo! Spent a few hours there this afternoon). I still can't lift anything too heavy for the next month and can walk all I want but can't jog for at least another month. I tried a little with Mags and the jiggling and shaking did not feel pleasant so I guess I'll have to be ok with that one. Since they didn't encroach on my uterus, I'm also free to start trying to get pregnant!

We got the surgical report and the pathology report. There were some abnormal cells in the tumor, but seemed to be mutated mitochondria or something non-cancerous so NO CANCER! Wahoo! That's what we were anticipating but it's always good to hear. The tumor was about 10 cm and weighed 83 grams. A uterus weighs about 70 grams. That only equates into about 0.25 lb. I was sorely disappointed by this. :( Every year they will check to make sure I don't have any regrowth or any new vampires develop since I'm obviously prone to them now. I also get the joy of a mammogram at the ripe ol' age of 30 since my mom is a breast cancer survivor. I'm thrilled. I guess better safe than sorry. So things look great and I've been given a clean bill of health. Thank you for all your prayers and support through this unexpected bump in the road. Stay tuned as our infertility journey continues, hopefully with a lot of questions already answered.

Stretchy Pants and Singing

Tuesday I went with my friend Tawny to Kelly Clarkson. Since I was heading out in public, this was my first venture into jeans as well. It hurt. With the few extra pounds I'm carrying around (hopefully from all the excess gas and fluids they pumped me up with in the hospital - let's not talk about all the ice cream I've been eating to "make the pain go away") and not being able to suck it in without wincing, I squeezed myself into my SKINNY jeans. Ugh, that should have been my first clue. They hit in all the wrong spots and cut me in half when I sat down. At least I felt half-human. I also feel like my insides are smashed together so that is a plus. Don't know if it was worth it though, I wanted my stretchy pants back so bad. Luckily I wasn't driving and had a Lortab handy.

Yesterday was my first day driving in almost 2 weeks (don't worry, I was on Ibuprofen, not Loratab and Tawny drove me so kindly to the concert and home). The twisting to check my blind spots wasn't so bad (am I on of the only ones on the road who turn to check? Jeez) it was the seatbelt. The way I lean forward dug it into my belly. It was just a short little drive so I survived.

Every day I'm feeling a little stronger and better. I'm able to handle Maggie on a walk for the most part and feel bad I can't run with her - too much jiggling. I had a super busy week with work stressing me out (been working from home), Kelly Clarkson, Enrichment Night RS birthday party, duct cleaners and Maggie stressing, I had a little meltdown. I was tired. I was sore today, I totally paid for overdoing it the last couple days so today I took it easy. I started reading the Eternal Eden trilogy on Saturday and finished it today. Dallin looked at me like I was crazy when he found out I read 3 books in 5 days. Loved it.

Wow, got really off track, back to Kelly Clarkson. It was at the Maverik Center and we had first row of the bowl off the floor right in the center. She had a song where she came out into the audience on a little stage about 20 rows out so we were about 20-30 feet away from her. Man, that girl can SING. I've always loved Kelly. We decided we need to be friends with her. I contemplated a social media campaign but think that might be a little crazy. She's just so down to earth and I'm sure we'd get along fabulously. lol We loved singing along with all the hits and dancing. No jumping for me, mom's orders. So fun still!

Our RS birthday party was an 8 Cow Woman Hawaiian party. A girl in my ward, her sister owns a wedding company and so we always have the cutest decorations. We had Hawaiian Haystacks and had speakers talk about various things. Cow Tippin' - Cheap and fun family activities; Cow Jumped Over the Moon - Setting and Achieving Goals; Mad Cow - Handling Life's Unexpected Turns; Holy Cow - Spirituality in the Home; Cash Cow - Living Happily on a Budget. We had a great time.

Stir Crazy

Sometimes there were days where I just desperately wanted a day to do absolutely nothing and veg. Once you've had a whole bunch of those in a row, you start to go a little stir crazy. My bum and back hurt from sitting/laying on the couch all day and I'm sure a little run would help but I can barely walk around the block before needing another nap. I can't even find Downton Abbey Season 1 to watch. I've tried to do some work from home but too many hours sitting in a computer chair and I pay for it the next day.

These are the thing I've learned whilst sitting on my ever-growing bum this past week after my first major surgery:

1. The air they use to blow you up with rises to your shoulders and it HURTS.

2. Zolfran (anti-nausea) medicine is AWESOME.

3. My husband and mom are great caretakers.

4. If I would have had surgery as a kid, I probably would have become a surgeon.

5. It's hard to work from home when your puppy wants to play.

6. It's good to not do anything important while on pain killers.

7. Having surgery during March Madness was not a bad idea (until Duke SCREWED my bracket).

8. People are good. God is good.

9. No matter if it's three little incisions or a big one, surgery is surgery and it'll take the wind right out of your sails (or maybe I'm just a big baby).

10. I don't miss Vampire Baby nor the stress/worry it caused me. I'm going to have to find a new pastime.

Today is the first day I have been able to lean forward or sit up without having to roll to my side. Iworked about 4.5 hours on Wednesday and it kicked my butt and I've been down since but it has allowed me to heal. I'm able to walk a bit faster and bend a little further so things are getting better. I'm also starting to get itchy which means the holes are healing. I keep a constant ice pack on my belly but luckily the weather has been nice (for the few minutes I've been outside) so I haven't frozen to death. I have one more week home and hopefully I'll be able to work more and more hours to pass the time.

Surgeon and Pictures

These pictures are from inside my belly so if you are queasy, probably skip these ones. I am, but for some reason they don't bother me. Here you are able to see Sulley all nice and snug between my ovary and uterus. You can tell it is definitely bigger than my uterus and ended up being about the size of a grapefruit. One is of it splayed in half and you can see its vascular system. Also, one of it gone with the root still needing to be cleaned up and here it is all cleaned and hopefully able to stretch back out again. You can see the tension on my ovary so I hope with this gone, it'll cut down on my cramps.

I'm in awe of my surgeon right now. I find it amazing that people are able to cut other people open and take the right things out, the right way, and make them feel better. I guess I've never really met a surgeon and only have seen ones on TV and so I just think he's the most incredible guy ever right now. I'm so thankful for him and his skills and for literally saving our dreams of having a family, it's hard to express my gratitude. Dr. Sharp is a rock star in my book, and I can't help but be a little star-struck.

A huge THANK YOU to all my family, friends, neighbors, etc. who have helped with Maggie, me, meals, visits, texts and phone calls to show your concern and care. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Surgery Story

I got to the hospital at 11 a.m. on Friday. They got me checked in and we got to the waiting room and they called us back almost immediately. They took me into a little room and I got dressed and they had teams of people come in to talk to me. A pharmacologist, the anesthesiology team, the resident who works with Dr. Sharp, Dr. Sharp himself, some RNs, etc. Then it was time to wheel me away. They wheeled me back to the OR. It was stark white with bright lights. I tried to imagine it like Grey's Anatomy but their ORs are very dark. They got me over onto the other bed, which had a soft little hole for my tailbone to go into so it didn't get too sore. Then they put the mask on me and I remember waking up in recovery and seeing my mom come into my room after recovery. I think I was finally coherent around 5:30 that night.

Things went well. The surgeon said it was a lot more complicated than they anticipated. It wasn't attached to my uterus at all, it was attached to the ligament that holds my uterus in place and is a really dicey area. The ligament carries the blood supply to my uterus. They told me if the fibroid would have been any deeper they wouldn't have been able to get it out and would have been intertwined with my uterus blood supply and they would have had to do a hysterectomy. My mom, me and Dallin all cried. I feel so blessed and grateful. It would have been absolutely devastating to wake up and know that kids were no longer an option. I feel so loved and watched over by a Heavenly Father who lead me to the tumor and a surgeon who was able to get it out. The surgery took longer than expected but couldn't have gone better, given the circumstances. It was close to my ureter and that blood supply so they were EXTRA careful. They didn't end up using the robot but were still able to do it laparoscopically. I lost about 400 cc of blood (200-250 cc is normal) but my crit levels came back fairly normal that night and the next morning.

That night I was sore and had to wait for my meds and only slept in hour increments until about 4:30 a.m. I had to go to the bathroom and it was so painful, my full bladder pushing against my wounds inside. I made it to the potty and started feeling REALLY crappy, like I was about to pass out. My mom used the call button and the nurses came running and took me the 5 steps to my bed in a wheelchair. I have never been in so much pain as I was with the gas rising to my shoulders and my lungs full of fluid I was trying to work out. I was crying and couldn't catch my breath and the only way to make my shoulders feel better was to get up and walk but walking made me nauseous, it was an awful, awful cycle. They finally started giving me Loratab instead of the IV pain meds and it made me feel a world of difference. I was able to get up and go to the bathroom, sit up in my bed, eat something and go on a walk. They weren't sure, after my horrific morning, that I'd be able to go home that night but by 6:30 p.m. I was signing my discharge papers.

I'm soooo grateful for a great surgeon, despite the wait, who was skilled enough and cared enough to get Vampire Baby out of me without any adverse effects. The nurses were so sweet, one even brought me ice cream at 5 a.m. which was the best breakfast ever. Just for the sake of documentation, I have to share about my last nurse I had. I was in pain and waited until after shift change to call for meds. 45 min later I still hadn't seen anyone so I called again and the CNA told me the nurse came in and gave me morphine 20 min. ago. My mom and I were like, "Uh, no. No one has been in here and no one has definitely given me morphine." The lady comes strolling in finally (an hour later) with the pain meds and tells me she understands I want some oatmeal. I don't know who this lady has been having conversations with, but it was definitely not me. She was telling me about showering after discharge, just like I showered on Saturday (I did not) and called me Emma when I left. Jeez, lol. Other than those crazies, my care was impeccable and a great experience.

I'm home and been sleeping a lot. Little things wear me out and I've had bouts of nausea but been able to eat and take some walks. Mags is completely out of sorts and very worried about me. She's been very gentle and almost ignored me. She gives me intense looks of concern and has been drooling out of stress. Dal has been taking good care of her.

I'm so grateful for the visitors I had, my family, Dal's family, a friend from high school, my neighbor and the countless texts and emails with offers to bring dinners and visit. I can't thank you enough. I'm so grateful so be on this side of things and now we get to focus on baby, as Dr. Sharp said. How grateful I am that is still an options, I don't think I can ever adequately express my gratitude for all of the blessing and tender mercies from this whole experience, time after time, after time. All I know is that there is a loving God who knows what we need and knows our individual circumstances. As much as I'd like to think I know a better plan for myself, in reality, He is the one with the big picture and in His hands I trust.

Sulley

Here we are on the eve of the Big Day. I was blessed to have worthy priesthood holders surround me and give me a beautiful blessing. I feel calm and ready with just a slight anxiousness. I am grateful for modern medicine and skilled doctors who are willing to deal with Vampire babies. I'm excited to move on with my life.
Good riddance to this guy.