A Happy Reunion

Guess what yesterday was….!!!  

Exactly six weeks since my hysterectomy.  

That is worthy of celebration and a blog post for two reasons:  

First, I'll be able to stop throwing the word hysterectomy around so casually on this blog from now on because I am officially done with this chapter of my life.  The words RECOVERY, SURGERY, and HYSTERECTOMY are forever banned from any future blog posts, I promise.  

And the second reason is this beautiful thing…

Oh, I have missed my vacuum cleaner so much.  I've been counting down the weeks until I could throw myself back into a cleaning ritual again.  And I don't even know what it is about vacuuming after a hysterectomy that is so dangerous, but the doctors and nurses all said, "Don't do it."  So I haven't.  Craig and the kids have done a great job, but it's just time for me and my cleaning friend to get back together.  I'm not a clean freak, really.  I'm more of a tidier.  There are dust bunnies lurking around, shoes have a hard time making it back into my closet, and my bathroom can get pretty scary.  But the one thing that makes me feel like a complete success as a homemaker is vacuuming.  

And boy, did I vacuum today!

Nothing was safe from this super cleaning duo.  We vacuumed the rugs, the wood floors, the carpet, the closets, the bathrooms…I would have taken the thing outside and done the patio if I had thought of it.  

After a few hours of quality reunion time, my house is now covered with those beautiful, freshly vacuumed lines all over the carpet.  I love those!  I just sat in my closet and looked at the ones in there for a really long time.  I may never let anyone walk in that closet again.  They make me so happy.  

And what a coincidence that Vacuum Reunion Day happened to fall on the day that Craig gets home from his winter weather extravaganza business trip in Birmingham.  He loves vacuum lines on the carpet, too.  He'll be thrilled that the vacuum and I are back together again.  

Oh, I just remembered another endearing flaw of mine…I hate to wrap the cord around the right way.  So I just coil it up and hang it precariously on the top hook and then hurry and close the closet door before it has a chance to fall off.  That's good enough, right?

Reminders

I've felt pretty great for the last few days...like better than I was expecting to feel this soon after surgery.  Since Christmas, I've felt better and better everyday.  More mobile.  Fewer headaches.  Less pain.  More clarity.  I've actually been looking forward to my post op doctor's appointment so I can tell her that I'm pretty sure I don't need to wait a whole 6 weeks to get back to my normal schedule.  And then this morning came…

I was up most of the night, then up for good at 5:00am with the worst raging headache since I've been home from the hospital.  I felt draggy, sore, reluctant to get out of bed, nauseous, and just generally crappy.  

I finally forced myself out of bed to eat breakfast, which didn't really help much, but at least I had something in my stomach so I could take pain meds.  Then I forced myself to get ready for the day, but even lipgloss didn't do much to improve my disposition this morning.  I felt really disappointed in myself that I wasn't continuing to improve.  

And then it occurred to me that this has happened before in my life…

When this little sweetie was born, I really had no idea what to expect.  I didn't know how long I would hurt, how long it would be before she slept through the night, how long it would take to get into some kind of schedule, or how long until my life became normal.  I was determined to be amazing, though, and get things on track as quickly as possible.  How hard could it be, right?

In the same week that we had our first baby, Craig and I also bought our first home.  While I was in the hospital, Craig arranged for all of our worldly possessions to be moved from our little apartment into our new little house, so that it would be ready for our new little baby to move into.  Old carpet was ripped out, rooms were painted, and furniture was moved in just in time for Savannah and I to come home from the hospital.  My parents had also driven in from Texas to be with me for as long as I needed them.  

All of that sounds perfectly wonderful, right?  

Well, it was perfectly wonderful until about the third day when we all started tripping over each other and my dear mother tried to help me unpack boxes and organize my kitchen.  Have I ever mentioned that I am slightly OCD?…especially about my kitchen??  Well, it was all I could do to sit there and let her try to help me.  I endured it for an entire week before I finally thought, "I'm feeling so much better than I think I should be at this point!  I'm just going to let my mom hold the baby and I'll unpack by myself."  

For four or five days, Savannah mostly slept.  My mom mostly held her.  And I mostly unpacked like a crazy woman so that my house would at least be in order.  I went back to church that Sunday, too, with a brand new Baby Savannah.  People marveled at how amazing I was.  My YW fought over who would get to hold Perfect Little Savannah.  And I lived up to that ridiculous ideal that I had in my head about what amazing should look like.  I felt pretty great.  I was a remarkable new mother.  I could not only bring life into the world, but I could set up a brand new household, too.  Success.  Validation.  Confidence.  

That lasted until Day 13 when all the magic wore off.  My parents had left to go back to their lives.  Craig was back at work.  The Relief Society had stopped bringing dinners.  There were empty moving boxes stacked up to the roof in the garage.  And Savannah had decided that eating every 3 hours was a better schedule for her than all that constant sleeping she had been doing the week before.  I was draggy, sore, tired, and so frustrated that I couldn't keep up the pace I had set for myself.  

I had thought that I had it all together.  I had thought I was awesome and that I had been blessed with a ridiculously easy baby.  I was totally wrong.  I spent that whole Day 13 and probably Day 14 in bed, alternating between crying and feeding my little insatiable baby.  I felt sorry for myself and like a failure as a mother.  

After having that experience with three additional babies, I now know that the recovery process is pretty much the same with all of them.  They fake you out in the first week and sleep for 24 hours a day because being born is HARD WORK.  They have to sleep as much as you do just to recover from the trauma of leaving the womb.  And when they wake up, they're HUNGRY!   I didn't try to be as amazing with the babies that came after Savannah, and I was more prepared for the round-the-clock feedings.  I stayed home from church longer than I wanted to.  I didn't try to organize a household during the first week after coming home from the hospital (although we did manage to schedule MAJOR moves within a few months of each of our other three kids' births.)  I still had a little bit of that OCD drive to be amazing, but I was more patient with myself and more willing to let the babies determine how quickly any of us got back into a normal routine.  

Apparently in the 10 years that have passed since I've had to recover from anything strenuous, I've forgotten about pacing myself and being patient.  I was so excited to be back among the living last week, that I jumped right into EVERYTHING way too soon.  

So, on this last day of 2013, I'm trying really hard to remember to be still.  There are people coming over tonight because I invited them before I remembered this little recovery lesson.  But I think I can be still anyway.  Be still and listen to my body.  Be still and let my family do things that they're more than willing and capable of doing.  Be still and just enjoy the people around me and the amazing year that has passed.  Be still and not worry about being amazing and perfect.  Be still and be grateful.  

I'm looking forward to spending New Year's Eve with people I love, who won't mind if I'm in my jammies and not venturing too far away from the couch.  

I hope that tonight, you're also surrounded by people you love and who love you, and that the upcoming New Year is as great as the one that has passed.  I'm so grateful for all of my wonderful friends, bloggy and otherwise, who read this blog and write their own and inspire and encourage me to look for the blessings around me.  Happy New Year's Eve!
    

Spoons

Well, I have to say, this whole recovery thing is not my style.  I'm having a hard time not doing what I usually do, staying in jammies all day, and letting everyone else do stuff for me. But last week, Craig said something that rang in my ears this morning when I forgot that I was supposed to be recovering.  

My dear sweet friend Allie, who passed away a year ago last September, kept an amazing blog while she was battling cancer.  She retold a little story once about spoons that has become a bit of a legacy in our house and the ward and probably in her family, too.  

The story goes something like this…Two friends were in a restaurant and one asked the other what it was like to be sick (I think the girl in the story had Lupus.)  As the sick friend tried to explain about lack of energy, aches, pains and medications, she started to get a little frustrated.  How can you really explain what sickness feels like to someone who is completely healthy?  So she looked around for something to use as an example, and quickly scooped up a handful of spoons.  She handed the spoon bouquet to her friend, and said, "Here.  You now have Lupus."  The sick friend explained that the difference between being sick and being healthy is that instead of having unlimited options, you have to make conscious choices about how you are going to spend your time.  So, with the spoons representing the energy it takes to do the most basic, simple daily activities, the sick friend started to remove the spoons, one by one, from her friend's small handful.  One spoon for getting dressed in the morning, an extra one if you actually shower and do your hair.  One spoon for running errands.  One for doing chores around the house.  As the handful of spoons dwindled and the other friend realized she hadn't even made it to dinnertime yet in her typical day, she realized that she could not do everything she wanted and needed to do.  If, at 7:00p, you are left with only one spoon, you have to make a choice to either play a game with your family or clean up the kitchen, to give your child a bath or help another one with homework.  There is never a day when you can do everything you want and need to do.  The sick friend showed with those spoons that she never took her energy for granted.  She could never get up in the morning feeling good and just casually use up all of her spoons because she knew that by mid-day she would be left with no energy for her family or whatever surprises might come along.  

Being in "recovery mode" now and temporarily having to consider my "spoons" throughout the day makes that story even more meaningful.  

This morning I made a really crappy, inadvertent decision to blow all of those spoons in one giant, frustrated swoop, before 11:00 in the morning.  

In my younger, more impetuous years (like pre-2010) I would do really reckless and stupid things when I got frustrated or angry.  I have thrown my fair share of dishes out the door and driven off with many a trail of dust behind me several times.  I'm not reckless like that anymore.  Now, when I get really mad, do you know what I do??  I CLEAN.  And I ORGANIZE.  And I THROW STUFF AWAY.  It's still pretty scary if you happen to be standing within my cleaning path when I go on one of those rampages, but at least it's not destructive anymore.

This morning, there was a little issue with one of my teenagers and her lack of cleanliness and organization.  It is a continuing problem with this particular child and most days I am fairly compassionate and rational about it.  We've moved her room to the farthest upstairs corner of the house so that her lifestyle doesn't effect the rest of us as much, and so that her mother doesn't see the way she lives and yell at her on a daily basis.  While this daughter of mine is capable of so many amazing and wonderful things, hygiene and cleanliness are not yet on that list.  

Yesterday she threw two enormous loads of laundry into the washing machine.  Another sister moved them into the dryer for her later that day.  And then when she came home, the first daughter grabbed both mega-piles and tossed them onto her not very clean floor in her bedroom.  UGH…

This morning, when everyone was scrambling to get ready for church, this daughter was the only one not ready because she couldn't find any of her church clothes, specifically the black skirt she wanted to wear (which actually belongs to ME, but I haven't seen it since she borrowed it about 6 months ago.)  Craig made the final call for all kids to get in the car.  And this daughter yelled that she couldn't go because she didn't have anything to wear.  And then she came barreling down the stairs to yell at me (her unsuspecting mother who was still in bed because I'm still supposed to be recovering and not going to church!)  I started in a calm voice (really, it was) to suggest she look through the pile in her bedroom.  But then she was so belligerent that I started yelling back.  (Ugh…I hate when I give in and let myself do that!)

Since I am still trying to keep stair-climbing on the list of things I'm not doing during recovery,  I asked Craig to go up and help her find something to wear to church.   She had apparently found what she was looking for by the time he got up there, but was still mad so she yelled at Craig and slammed her bedroom door in his face.  

Ugh…can you feel my blood starting to boil??? 

I held my tongue and got back into bed until they were all safely out the door and on their way to church, but I was getting more and more angry just thinking about all the unnecessary dust that had been kicked up by this one little child.  I stewed for a minute and then got out of bed and stormed up the stairs!  (I could hear a tiny little voice in my head saying to me "What do you think you're doing?" But up I went anyway.)  It is scary and smelly and disgusting up there.  I waded through piles of clean/dirty laundry, Sonic drinks, and trash, and found all of her technology (phone, iPod, speakers, etc.)  Oh, and I also found all of the clothes that she had apparently helped herself to when I was in the hospital.  This whole time I just thought I had lost my mind when I couldn't find my leggings ANYWHERE.  I brought down her technology, went back up to get my clothes, threw them into the washing machine, went back up to get all the half full Sonic drinks, and to throw the rest of her stray laundry that was on the floor of my laundry room into her ever growing pile of clean/dirty clothes.  

Somehow the kitchen counter also got cleaned.  Pumpkin pie tracks were wiped off the floor.  The sink was bleached.  Christmas presents were put away.  And vases of flowers received fresh water.  But I barely remember doing any of that.  It was a rondo of a rampage fueled by angry adrenaline, and as soon as I stopped moving I knew I was going to regret it.   I could hear both Craig and Allie's voice telling me the spoon story again.   

ugh…

So, now instead of doing fun things tonight like playing games or going for a little walk, I will be sitting on the couch for the rest of the day and back on the pain meds that I had proudly weaned myself off of.  My headache has returned, too, and there is no Diet DP in sight.  

I'm calmer now.  And I don't feel crazy anymore because I thought I had lost my favorite pair of black leggings.  And my kitchen is cleaner than it was when everyone left this morning.  But it was kind of at a ridiculously high price.  

Hopefully we will all be calmer when they get home from church.  Hopefully this daughter will figure out how to take care of her stuff.  Hopefully I will be a better teacher.  And hopefully I won't regret my rampage too far into next week.  

Surgery Update

If you're in that category of people who just read the disclaimer of my last post and ran screaming to find another blog, you can just walk right on past this post, too.  I totally understand.  But over the weekend, while I was sitting on the couch with way too much time on my hands, I thought about how awful it was that I blasted out that pre-surgery post and then just left everyone hanging for over a week.  

If all you care to know are the highlights, then just read this…

The surgery went well.  I'm fine.  

For the rest of you, and probably so I'll remember some aspect of this experience in the future, here are the details…most of them…minus the lovely pictures of my uterus that somehow Craig ended up with.  ???

Craig and I got up at 5:00 Wednesday morning, left the kids last minute notes of instructions and love messages, threw my little bag in the Jeep, and drove to the hospital.  My surgery was scheduled for 7:30, but we had been advised to get to the hospital 90 minutes early to get through all the prep.  There's A LOT of that!  There were papers to sign, insurance questions to answer, copays to be made, a lovely hospital gown to change into, more blood to be drawn, an IV to be put in (blech…), medical history questions to answer, an endless parade of nurses, anesthesiologists, and technicians, more medical history questions to answer (no, I have never smoked…no, I don't drink…no, I've never had anesthesia before…no, I've never had any surgery of any kind, not even a C-section.  It was a little exhausting, but everyone was so nice and so patient, because as it got closer and closer to 7:30, I got more and more nervous.  

When everyone was finished interviewing me, the doctor came in and gave me a short briefing of what to expect, the anesthesiologist added "something to take the edge off" into my IV, I said goodbye to Craig, and they wheeled my little mobile bed into the OR.  

I was freezing in the waiting room.  I was even colder in the pre-surgery room in that flimsy little gown.  And as they wheeled me down the long, sterile hall to the OR, I could feel the temperature dropping even more.  How do doctors and nurses even work in sub zero temperatures like that??  The giant doors to the OR swung open.  They wheeled me into a little corner and I remember saying, "This doesn't look anything like Grey's Anatomy??"  There was some giggling in the room.  I looked up and commented on the enormous light fixtures and the little ice cube-shaped light bulbs in them, and a nurse who I couldn't see patted me on the shoulder and said, "Yes they sure do, honey."  And that's the last thing I remember after that.  

I thought there was supposed to be counting backwards from 100.  Or something??  But there wasn't.  Just ice cube lights and then… ???  I have no idea what happened after that.  

I remember waking up in what I thought was the same room, with something that felt like a show horn in my mouth.  I was trying so hard to focus on the clock so that I could tell if they had even done the surgery yet, but I couldn't tell what those hands were pointing to.  A few minutes later, a nurse was talking, things were being taken off of me, and I was once again being wheeled to some other location.  

They wheeled me into my little hospital home for the next 48 hours and I was so happy to be able to read the clock finally.  12:30pm.  And the nice nurse pointed out that Craig was there…sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.  I hadn't even noticed him.  

There were instructions, but I don't remember them.  There was a cup full of water.  Another cup full of ice chips.  And a remote control with a bright green light in my hand that they said was for pain.  Anytime I felt any pain, I could press that little button.  So I did…a lot.  The first 24 hours after surgery, morphine is definitely your friend.  

Sometime after the anesthesia grogginess wore off, the doctor visited and told me the details.  That fibroid they thought was the size of a grapefruit was actually closer to a cantaloupe (blah…) so the surgery which typically takes about an hour and a half took them close to 4 hours.  I lost about a liter of blood and she kept tossing around the word transfusion.  I heard something about not having to do that if I bounced back quickly and they could see some good progress in the next 48 hours.  So I willed myself to progress.  I got up the next morning.  I let them take my morphine friend.  I went to the potty all by myself.  And by 8:00 the next night, I was walking down the hall with Craig and the kids to peek at the babies in the nursery.  (That was the best part of being housed in the maternity wing of the hospital…the nursery!)  By Friday morning, when the doctor visited, no one was talking about transfusions anymore.  Just release papers.  Hooray!

I stayed in that little hospital room until late Friday afternoon.  48 hours is a long time to live in a hospital.  I know, I'm a baby.  Some people have to stay in hospitals for a lot longer than that.   Sleeping was hard.  Being woken up every four hours for vitals and meds was hard.  Being there by myself was hard.  

The staff was so nice and so accommodating that they made the whole experience a lot more tolerable.  I loved the cute nurses who kept marveling that I was so young to have had a hysterectomy.  None of them believed me when I said I was 43.  It was right there on my ID badge!  I'm plenty old enough to have a hysterectomy.  

Craig and Savannah brought me home Friday afternoon, and I can honestly say, HOME IS THE BEST PLACE TO BE.  I crawled right into my perfect bed and fell asleep for about two hours…Savannah slipped in there next to me because she was relieved that I was home, and relieved to have her finals over with.   It was a long week for all of us.

There are things they don't tell you before you have surgery.  Like that anesthesia is a crazy powerful thing and that it has lingering side effects.  Food tastes gross for about a week.  There is this yucky taste in your mouth that no amount of teeth brushing will get rid of.  Protein is your friend.  Sugar is not.  If you happen to get the raging headaches that I had, the only thing that even remotely helps is caffeine.  There were mega amounts of Diet DP consumed after I found out that little helpful tip.  

Overall, though, I feel really good.  I'm so happy to have this part of my life over with (both the surgery and the girl responsibilities that have left along with my uterus.)  Craig and the kids have been such a huge help.  I really had no idea that my family was capable of everything they've done in the last few days.  I'll have to figure out some way to incorporate a lot more of their help into my regular schedule from now on.  

I'm grateful for helpful family and thoughtful friends who have brought dinners and flowers and treats.  I'm grateful for modern technology that allows this to even be an option.  What on earth did people do before anesthesia, pain meds, and modern medicine???  And I'm so grateful to be out of the hospital and back at home for the rest of this (hopefully) speedy recovery.