The surgery went fine and I am sure I am ok but the recover is a lot worse than I expected. I have having a devil of a time swallowing anything so eating really isn’t happening. I can get a bite or two of whatever I am attempting before I am done. This means I haven’t had anything like a full meal total for two days. I am up to eating ice chips for my hydration.

My friend Ken has taken me to his home and is taking care of me. I thought I would want someone around if I hit a problem. It turns out I am in problem mode all the times I am not asleep. It turns out I really need actual assistance. I was overly optimistic before. Now I am wondering it I am going to be up to snuff in one week or in more like two weeks.

All the things that are soft and liquid and cold are sweet and I seem to be spitting back up the sweet stuff which keeps me from eating as well.

Add to this I hit panic mode. I know I am fine but emotionally and physically I am react in a panic. Once I figured that out, things were a little better.

At the hospital, during recovery, the nurses seemed to think I should be able to just get up after recovery and get dressed and there was no way I could. I didn’t have the energy and was so shaky. I slept longer than expected I think due to the fact that every time I woke up I told them I hurt
and they gave me morphine. They would put heated blankets on me and I had trouble with that. I over
heated very quickly. I would start to focus on what I had to do to leave and I would be overwhelmed. I asked for dkferret (who was my surgery babysitter and did a bang up job) to help me get dressed and they said they would help me and then ignored me. They were getting ready to close down so it is understandable but it didn’t help not trigger things. They couldn’t understand my need for apple juice and told me I could have it after I got dressed. I had to fight them on
that too. They finally started listening to me and treating me like I had a problem when I finally yelled “What do you want from me?” I had to have a wheelchair out and couldn’t walk. The response I got from the nurse was that they didn’t do anything to my legs implying I should be able to stand on my own. A day later and I still am shaky when it comes to standing and walking.

After I got home and dkferret turned me over to Ken I just couldn’t face being taken to the South Bay. He had to return to take care of the dogs so after I had some more sleep I felt better but when faced with getting up and leaving, I felt apart all over again. Ken left and came back for me in the morning around 8am.

When I had some more sleep and woke up this time I realize that a lot of my issues are the panic reactions. I had Ken call Kaiser to find out if I could take my panic medicine and what else we can do about the pain meds because while they help it still hurts too much chew or swallow. The worst part of all this is that my tongue is swollen from them clamping it down. I can’t move things around in my mouth without it.

Normally I am fascinated by what happens to my body but I can’t even look at this yet. I am almost to a point where I can looking at part of it.

I will be fine, talking is hard and for anyone that has hung out with me, you will understand how much that bothers me. It hurts and it will take time to get better. Whaaaa

My surgery was delayed to around 3pm. They couldn’t get me out of the hospital until 8pm. 11 pm is when we sent Ken home because I couldn’t face a trip south. About three people wanted me to call them after the surgery to let them know how it went. I couldn’t call them on Friday and I finally had Ken call them Sat afternoon just to keep them informed.

Well, I wanted to be taken care of and that is what I am getting because I really need it. I was just hoping that it wouldn’t hurt so bad. I was suppose to be on happy happy drugs to get through this and just not functional. Whaaa.