The surgery itself wasn't a bad surgery. It only took about 30 minutes and then 30-45 minutes of me waking up.
Getting the surgery was a struggle. A week and a half before surgery I had to go see my OBGYN to be examined. During the exam, she found a large lump. She thought it might be a hernia or a cyst. She wanted to have a surgeon be with her during the surgery just in case. Well, she couldn't find a surgeon that could do it on my surgery day.
The nurse tells me she wants me to get a surgeon's opinion. I told the nurse I had a CT Scan in August and the gastro doctor didn't say anything about it. The nurse tells me a CT scan sometimes doesn't show it. The problem is she can't get me in to see a surgeon until December. I panicked because I got my insurance to approve of it and everything will be covered. If I wait until December or January to have the surgery I have to deal with a new insurance. Great.
I called the surgeon I have been working with the past couple of months. She couldn't get me until November 23. I had them put me on a cancellation list. Marcaine injection
I have been playing back and forth with my OBGYN's nurse. My OBGYN would like to see the CT Scan report.
October 17 I see my pain doctor to get a treatment plan going because the last procedure they didn't treat my pain at all. This was the DNC procedure. This time I was going to have a plan. Plus, my OBGYN wants an RSD treatment plan. My pain doctor told me as long as my OBGYN injects Marcaine (.25) into every area she touches especially the incision area and the tubes, I should wake up with no pain. The key is to treat the pain before I even wake up. If I wake up with pain then there is nothing I can do because the RSD will take over. Even if I wake up with pain and they give me Fentanyl, morphine and/or Dilaudid it still won't do any good, so it is important they numb up all the areas they touch. By numbing it up it the numbing should last 24-36 hours which is the worst days. This is good, but trying to talk a doctor into doing this might be a challenge.
Monday, Oct 18, I get a call from my surgeon's office. They have a cancellation for Wednesday, Oct 20 at 11:30am. Yes!! God is being amazing. I call the OBGYN's nurse. I left a message saying I am seeing the surgeon Wednesday and am on my way to the primary care doctor to get a copy of the CT Scan results.
My primary care office wouldn't allow me to get my results from the CT Scan. Long story. I will tell you what happened in another post.
Then an hour later I get a call from my OBGYN telling me my surgeon doesn't do surgery at their hospital. That would have been nice of you to tell me last week when I told them I had an appointment with her on Nov 23. I was not happy. She told me it not likely I will be able to get the surgery on Thursday. I cried. Now I have to go through the insurance nightmare again.
Tuesday Oct 19 morning my OBGYN's nurse called. She told me the surgery is on for Thursday. Then the nurse said, "This will be the last call I make to you. You are driving me nuts." I was shocked that she said that. She wasn't jokingly saying it either. She was serious. This threw me off. I forgot to ask if she received my pain doctors letter. So I had to call the nurse back.
Wednesday, Oct 20, I saw the surgeon. She couldn't feel a hernia. But she will be doing my colonoscopy. She is not happy with the way I have been treated by the gastro doctors. My mom and I were both crying in her office and she said she is going to figure out what is going on.
To be on the safe side I went and picked up a copy of the pain letter from my pain doctor and took it over to my OBGYN and handed it to the nurse. I also made a copy to give to my OBGYN on surgery day.
Thursday Oct 21- SURGERY TIME. My surgery wasn't until 3:15pm. I had to get to the hospital at 1:45pm. They got my IV in. Took the guy 3 xs. What is really weird when I woke up the IV was on the other arm. This was the first surgery I got to keep my Fentanyl patch on. Usually the Anesthesiologist and surgeon want it off, but because my pain doctor said it has to be left on they did.
I woke up with some discomfort. They told me I can't go home until I eat, walk and pee. They brought me a Gluten-Free blueberry muffin. Within an hour I had to pee. Not at all excited about it. Terrified it will burn. It was very painful. There was a lot of blood. It looked like Koolaid. It wasn't clot blood just liquid Koolaid. LOL. It burned really bad. It was really hard to get out of bed and up and down from the toilet. It was nothing compared to the amount of pain I had from my DNC procedure. It also helped they used a different soap. I think the soap was the cause of most of my pain.
I ate a little. Within 2 hours I was ready to go home.
I had a hard time getting comfortable espcially because my shoulder was killing me. The air bubbles from the surgery are the worse. The heating pad really helped.
Friday I still had a good amount of pain. I stayed on my pain with my pain medication. Getting up and down from the chair was the worst. My shirt and underwear kept rubbing against my stitches.
Saturday was the same as Friday. The worst is my shoulders.
Sunday I felt a little better. I went to see Medea's Halloween and went on a car ride. Sunday night I was paying for it. I think I rushed myself.
Tuesday I'm a little better. I keep thinking I can do more than I can. I find myself getting discourage and losing patience thinking I should be back to normal.
When you have RSD and other health problems it will take longer than "normal" healthy people to recover. I have to remind myself of that.
I will keep you posted on my recovery.
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