The post-colon era

Creating suspense! That's exactly what I have been trying to do. It is exactly how I have learned it from the great Hollywood producers of yester-year. You build, and build, and build, and then nothing. For a bit. So obviously, I am alive. The surgery went for about 8 1/2 hours for everyone in the real world. It was about one minute for me. It went pretty well I think. I'll run down what I can recall. First we checked in at the First Day Surgery department at 5:30 AM. Shortly after, I was whisked away to a curtained area where I proceeded to get my gown and robe mixed up and put them on backwards. A word of advice, the gown has snaps, the robe doesn't. Otherwise they are exactly the same. Both equally sexy. After meeting with the various teams that would be working on me (I like the idea of a team, like when somebody makes an error in baseball someone is there to fix their mistake). The anesthesiologists were very pleasant. They brought me first to "cocktail hour" where they doped me up on something that allowed them to stick an epidural in my spine. I would imagine that would have been a bit uncomfortable without the initial pain killer. They had to wiggle around for a while to find the right spot. It did start working almost immediately though. That was pretty good. They then wheeled me into the OR where I scooted onto the operating table. It was a pretty cold, white room with a lot of lights and cameras. After moving onto the table the next thing that I remember is waking up in a haze and not really knowing what was going on.

To the right is a picture of me looking pretty doped up and chubby right after surgery. Certainly not the most flattering of pictures, but it kind of sums up how I felt. The nurses appeared to have a bit more energy. There are some even less appealing pictures if you can believe that. I don't remember the first day too well. I basically laid on a bed in my room and drifted in and out of consciousness. I couldn't really drink or eat anything yet, not that I was very interested in that. Doctors and residents stopped by and checked on me, and I eventually fell asleep for a few hours at a time that night. I ran a fever of 103 for most of that evening and night, but we eventually got it under control.

The second day I started feeling quite a bit better. I managed to sit up a little bit and even walk a couple of times. I made it about 30 feet, which was pretty good I guess. At least according to the nurses. Much to the dismay of everyone around me, I also got my NG tube taken out. For those of you not familiar with such a device, it is about a two foot long piece of tubing (maybe 1/4 inch) that goes down your throat and into your stomach. The intention is to suck out various substances that can make you nauseous and perhaps vomit, which would not be comfortable for someone with recently made incisions in their stomach. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for others, this tubing made it a bit difficult to talk. By the second day it was making my throat pretty sore. We decided that the output wasn't very high and that we would take it out. While pulling it out, I decided that the four seconds that my nurse was taking to perform this task was not enough and just pulled it out myself as fast as possible after about half a second of this lovely experience. Definitely not pleasant either way. The faster the better though. The end result was a slightly sore throat and a piece of tubing covered in mucus and snot. With my newly recovered vocal abilities, I returned to my usual abrasive and sarcastic self. Additional activities that I enjoyed this day include changing my ostomy bag and being bathed by an intimidating nursing assistant from South Africa.

The third day was filled with ups and downs. I was able to start sipping clear liquids. This was a nice change. I tried to get up that morning for a towel bath, but got very light-headed and ended up laying in bed for a bit. Unfortunately, my position made my ostomy connection begin to leak and within a few moments I was enjoying laying in a pool of my own waste material. Very comforting. Thank goodness for my nurse Robyn (right). She was very patient with cleaning everything multiple times that day and never complaining about it. It was truly repulsive. One thing that I have learned is to have no shame in terms of medical care. You really have to be open to whatever in order to get proper care. I basically took it easy the rest of the day. It was decided by a team of residents (much like you can imagine from any popular medical television show, i.e. ER, Scrubs, or House, but without the entertainment value) that my fluids were low which was making me light-headed. So we increased that and I began to feel much better.

Today is the fourth day (Thursday). It has been a much better day today. I discussed with the anesthesiologists about making a new cocktail for my epidural yesterday. We started that last night and it has been working wonderfully. I went for two walks today, and even had some clear liquids. This is the first form of food that I have had since Saturday morning, but I fear that I did not loose as much weight on the famed starvation/take out an organ diet as I had hoped. We have begun discussing a discharge date, which still seems a bit sudden to me. I gauge how I am doing by how many apparatuses are attached to me. I still have the epidural, a catheter, a wound drainage device, and an IV. It seems that there is still a ways to go. We will see though. Perhaps late tomorrow or Monday. I am supposed to start on full liquids, which I believe are those that you cannot see through, later this evening. I am definitely looking forward to that. Anyway, now that I am a bit more mobile and coherent I will update more often and hopefully more entertainingly. Until then, thanks for all of the support.