Keeping it Real....Again

Hello All,

I call it the "hospital shuffle" -- the sound of the nurses shoes up and down the hall outside my hospital room door.  Add to that the various beeps and buzzes (and there are plenty of them) and you have quite a little cacophony of sounds that have become all too familiar.  Yes, what should have been a routine, no-stay-in-the-hospital surgery has turned into a two day event for me.  But why should I be surprised?  Everything, it seems of late, has had an extra layer of complication.

The good news is that there weren't any complications due to the actual surgery, at least none that I know of.  No seizures. No stroke.  However, my blood wouldn't/couldn't oxygenate in the normal way after surgery so they couldn't release me and I needed to stay overnight. That may sound like a very small thing indeed, but we ended up sitting in the Recovery Room for hours on end on Tuesday (until about 9 p.m. I believe)....frustrated that yet again we were at the mercy of hospital regulations and a body that is showing the signs of two years of chemo-breakdown.  So spend the night I did...yet again!   Then, at 2 a.m., I woke up with a whopping sore throat  and temperature hovering close to 102 (101.9). No infection was present, it turns out, but something caused by my lungs not receiving enough oxygen during surgery.

It's now 6:45 a.m. on Thursday and I just found out I will be discharged today -- YEAH -- and have this whole debacle behind me.  I should never have had the Ommaya Reservoir put in in the first place....but then, we can't always know what consequences our logically based decisions will have.....

I know it must sound like a TINY inconvenience -- being in the hospital -- but Peter and I were again so looking forward to one of the small joys of life -- going out to eat after a day of fasting (for my surgery) and the trauma of the surgery itself. But we had to settle for hospital cuisine instead.  It was magnified because of all the small and large setbacks, twists and turns since July 11.  So now what might be "water off a ducks back" feels enormous and probably is a bit out of perspective in the Big Picture.  After all, I HAVE THE RESERVOIR OUT OF MY HEAD NOW!!!!!

OK, so I had one more night in the hospital.  That isn't that bad.  I can wiggle my toes (meaning the brain surgery didn't paralyze me, and that is a MAJOR good thing.)  But then we found out I had to stay another night in the hospital too because of the fever, and our dreams of seeing a good movie and/or eating out were dashed yet again. So we watched soccer on TV instead and I was even too sleepy for that, due to all the pain medication I've been taking.  I found that the pain from this surgery has been about 5 times stronger than the pain when they put the Reservoir into my brain about 5 weeks ago.  I've had to take ALL of their STRONGEST pain medications every few hours just to get by.  Major Ouch!

Last night Soccer kept getting interrupted by the almost constant influx of nurses and other hospital personnel which we've become oh-so-used to in recent weeks. After two years of these grey walls (yes, they are literally grey!) we have become highly sensitized to what appear to be, in the Big Picture, the small insults and injuries of hospital life.  We are just so "done" with this.....so we have to call upon our deepest inner strength, perseverance, and resilency.  Sometimes that's easier than at other times.  Life, at least for now, has set new parameters for me and consequently for Peter and we bump up against these parameters like bars in a prison.  We eventually realize that this won't get us anywhere; only chaffing and bruises on our hands and bodies.  Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance.  There alone will we find peace.  Accepting the reality of the present moment and not longing for "what isn't...."  At the same time, we have to allow for our human moments and let the steam out....as well as find some joy in small things.  I think we do pretty darn well with this most of the time.  But in my humble opinion we are way overdue for a little easier ride instead of the bumpy pot-hole ridden ride we've been on for the last several months.

Well, my update this time isn't all "peaches and cream" but it's important that I keep it real too...

Til soon and with love,

Heidi