The big day

My day started at 3:45am on March 5th, 2009. I had a hard time sleeping the night before my surgery. I was a little bit nervous but not really scared.

I got up and took a shower. I had to be at the hospital at 5:30am so I needed to get going. I had to finish packing up my bag and get the kids lunches together for the day. I made Alex and Bryce's lunches and put little notes in them. I told them to have a great day at school and that I loved them very much.

I got Bernie out of bed at 4:30am. He needed to get up and get going so we could get to the hospital on time. My sister-in-law was supposed to be at our house about 4:55am-5am. Well, of course...she was late. I don't even know why I even asked her to help, she is never on time. We left our house at about 5:20 am. We were 5 minutes late getting to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, we were taken to the pre-operative surgery area and I had to be prepped for my surgery which was at 7:30am. The nurse had me change into my beautiful gown. My blood pressure, oxygen levels and temperature were checked. The nurse put my IV in. She only had to stick me once...yeah to her. I have such bad veins.

The anesthesiologist came in and told me that since I get so sick from medicine he will give me a spinal and see what I will need after surgery for pain control.

My doctor came in and told us that the surgery will only take an hour, then I will be in recovery for about an hour and then my husband can see me.

A nurse from the Operating Room came over to make sure I had everything needed in my chart and gave me my wonderful hat to put on. At 7:20am I was wheeled back to the Operating Room for my surgery.

I got the the OR and the anesthesiologist said "I just put some sedation in your IV you should feel tired soon." Right after he said that I was out sleeping. While I was sleeping he gave me my spinal anesthetic.

I woke up in the Recovery room at 10am. I guess I had been there for about 30 minutes. My surgery took 2 hours instead of 1 hour. My uterus was attached completely to my abdominal wall and bowels by adhesions from my previous c-sections and gallbladder surgery. I had a cyst on my left ovary that he removed and then sewed up my ovary.

I was having the most pain I have ever had in my life!!! The anesthesiologist immediately turned me over and gave me an epidural for pain control. I get very sick from morphine so he thought the epidural would work much better for me.

I got back to my room around 11:30 or so. I guess my mom was there and my mother-in-law also. I was throwing up every couple of minutes. Thank you sedation. My husband got to my room as soon as he picked up little Drew from school. I don't remember much other than I was throwing up like crazy so he took Drew for a walk around the hospital and let me rest for a while. Bernie went and picked up the boys from school at 3pm and they came to visit for a little while. I think they were only in the room for about 30 minutes...I was still throwing up.

I asked Bernie to take the boys home to do their homework. I couldn't visit and I was only getting sick and listening to them all talk at once would make my head hurt and then I would vomit. My mother-in-law and father-in-law and mom came back by around 6pm. Oh I wish they didn't. I hadn't thrown up since about 4pm and I was sleeping on and off. Everytime I went to talk, I threw up.

While all this was going on, the nurses kept calling the anesthesiologist and they kept giving my different drugs called anti-emetics to help with the vomiting. Finally later that night I was given the miracle drug and I stopped throwing up about 3am.

The nurses were in my room constantly checking on me. I found out the next day that they werre looking for internal bleeding because of the extent of cutting my doc had to do.

At 3am the nurse came in and I felt pretty good. I asked to sit on the end of the bed with my feet dangling. I was actually able to stand up for a minute.

Bernie came with Drew on Friday morning to see me. I was up sitting in a chair and actually eating a decent breakfast. I got up and took a shower later that day and the boys came to visit for a while after school. I walked the halls also that day.

The doc came in and told me that my uterus was a "nightmare" because my pelvic area looked like a bomb went off in it. Yeah!!! just what I wanted to hear. He told me that I could go home Saturday night if I continued to make progress.

I did well on Friday and Saturday morning came and I was able to pee and my bowels were moving around making gas. I was walking around a lot so my doc said he would write my discharge papers and I could go home anytime. So I called Bernie and told him to get to the hospital and get me out of here. I was tired of not resting enough.

I was home by lunch time.

My pathology came back and everything was fine other than I had severe adenomyosis in my uterus. Which is mostly why I was having so many problems.

I am at day 6 right now. I just had my first bm...I know tmi! I am only taking motrin every six hours and I am feeling much better.

What amazes me the most is how 12 hours of rest make a difference in your pain level and such. Every day I feel much better. I get tired whenever I do anything, but I am feeling better.

Thank you all for thinking of me.

Count down

Tomorrow is my surgery. I am scheduled for 7:30 am. The doctor said the surgery should be about an hour and recovery will be an hour then I will be in a room.

I have my sister-in-law coming over in the morning at 5am to get the boys up and ready for school. We have to be at the hospital at 5:30am...YUK!

Melisa (my sil) will get the boys out of bed at 6:30 and on the bus at 7:30. Drew gets on his bus at 8:30am. Then she will pick Drew up at 11:15 and someone will pick up the boys at 3pm. She is chronically late but she has assurred me that she will be at my house at 5am tomorrow morning.

I have to make sure that Drew's clothes are laid out for the next 5 or so days because Bernie is color blind and needs help with matching. Alex and Bryce know what to wear, so I will not have any problems with that.

I need to make a list of the kids schedule for Bernie. He doesn't have a good memory.

I have some homework for my classes to finish up. I think that is going to take a good portion of the day today.

I want to clean the house again today. I have most of the laundry done again also.

So I'll have to let you know how I am doing.

The count down is on...

I am scheduled to have surgery on Thursday morning. Even though it is very invasive, I am looking forward to it.

I cannot wait to start feeling better and to be able to lose my baby hump on my stomach. My uterus is enlarged so once it is removed I'll be able to work on that hump.

I also cannot wait for the break from kids and life for a few days. It is so sad that as a mom, I am excited to go to the hospital for a few days, just to get some rest.

I got all of my laundry done in the house. My husband and I cleaned our house from top to bottom this past weekend. I want a CLEAN house when I come home. But, of course it is only Monday and my boys have trashed it all ready. But at least floors are mopped, sheets are washed and we have decluttered a bit.

I'll keep you all posted and updated after my surgery.

Busy Lives

Tonight Alex starts boys volleyball practice. We just got done with boys basketball and now we are starting volleyball. I know he is very excited about playing another sport. Bernie is going to take him to his 1 1/2 hour practice.

Drew has a parent/child night at his school. The kids are going to "perform." I am excited about attending something at Drew's school. I'm not sure how Drew is going to perform but I guess we will see. I know if they are singing Drew will not be involved becaus he is non-verbal. We always had so many things going on that we are never able to attend Drew's things.

Bryce doesn't have much going on right now. He is going to start baseball in April, so we will be doing volleyball and baseball at the same time. I'm not sure how we are going to juggle it all, but I am sure we will do fine.

Then tomorrow night we have to attend Stations of the Cross at our church because Alex is an altar server and it is his night to work.

I want to get my homework done for this week and next week this weekend because I am having surgery next Thursday. I also want to clean my house from top to bottom. We will see how much I get done of that. Plus I am trying to work on our taxes. This is such a chore because of my daycare business. You know if I would just do the work each month I wouldn't have to spend so much time at the end of the year working on taxes.

I guess if we weren't busy our lives would be pretty boring. So I welcome this craziness into our lives.

Up and out of bed

What a morning. My kids actually got out of bed without me having to go to their rooms 3 times to get them up.

We are having such a wonderful day.

Bryce got dressed, his breakfast ready, and his backpack packed without me having to ask him every 5 minutes. Alex got up and took a shower, ate breakfast, made his lunch (he hasn't done that in over 4 months), got dressed and got his backpack packed up. What happened to my children? I like these new kids, I didn' thave to raise my voice one time this morning.

Today is going to be a GREAT day. It has been so cold and snowy and dark in the mornings that my kids never want to get out of bed. What a change. I hope this means that spring is around the corner. I know it starts to warm up a bit at the end of March so only about 4 more weeks of this crazy weather.

I could definately have many more mornings like today...Yeah!

What a weekend

So I talked last week about the Thompson's Waterseal being poured on my basement floor. My husband came home on Friday night and told me that we need to evacuate the house because the odor was too strong. So he read the side of the can and yep we needed to get out of the house.

We opened all the windows to the house and packed up some clothes and went to grandma and grandpas house. They live 2 doors down from us. Bernie used mineral spirits to scrub down the cement.

Grandma and Grandpas house is nice....but HOT!!! I had the hardest time sleeping. Drew was up by 6am so I decided to walk home so he didn't wake grandma and grandpa. I go outside and we got 6 more inches of snow!!!! YUK

When I walked into the house it smelled like the mineral spirits so I opened a bunch of windows again. I aired out the house as much as I could. The odor is much better now, but still there. What can we do, it'll probably smell until springtime when we can open the windows a bit.

Kids!!!

I was in the playroom in our basement with Drew and one of the girls I watch. I went upstairs to go to the bathroom and through the vent I could smell something strong.

I run down the stairs and somehow in the few minutes that I was upstairs, Drew got on a shelf and opened up a container of Thompson's Waterseal!!!! How in the heck did he get that open? It has a child safety cap on it!!! The Thompson's Waterseal is now on my basement floor.

I cannot get it out....My husband said once it dries it will probably just bead water!!!

What am I going to do with that boy.

Thank God it is Friday and I can laugh about this later with a bottle of wine!!!