So I passed out, feeling very poorly, once I got into my room at 11:30 p.m. (not to belabor this point, but…). I knew the nurse was coming back at 2:30 a.m. to start me on more antibiotics. After being awakened by the beeping of the malfunctioning IV, then the beeping of the malfunctioning leg-squeezers (the nurse came right away both times), I woke up at about 2:10 a.m. and felt about a million times better—interesting what sleep can do! I got up out of bed, I brushed my teeth (heaven), and changed out of my hospital gown and into my pajamas. Ahhh, I felt like a human again. The nurse came in and I told her I felt like a new woman!
I went back to sleep and woke up at 5:30 a.m., in some pain. It was time for my pain meds, but I decided to see if I could wait one extra hour. I figured there was no time like the present to start weaning myself off the pain meds. This was stupid. I called the nurse at 6:30 a.m. but because I left it for too long, I didn’t feel better until after my next dose at 12:30 p.m. At 7:00 a.m., Beloved arrived. I told him how much better I was feeling. Then the resident and his assistant came by and they told me again about my inflamed gallbladder and I nodded sagely and asked when I could get out. They promised that after I had breakfast and “could tolerate it” (keep it down), I could go (I’d had nothing to eat the day before, just some ginger ale and beef boullion). The surgeon then stopped by and he gave a similar report, I asked the same questions, got the same answers. Then the breakfast came—they gave me everything because they weren’t sure what diet I was on. Since I need to be on a low-fat diet for awhile, I ate the grapes and the oatmeal, leaving the French toast and bacon (I know!) on the tray. So close, my lovelies, yet so far. After I ate, I got dressed. An hour later, they pulled out that mother-loving IV and let me go! I walked out with Beloved, very slowly.
The day before, every limb in my body cried out unto the heavens. On this day, just my trunk did. It felt s if a bomb had gone off inside my body. We got home, and I spent the rest of the day sleeping, waking up to take medicine and eat a bit, then go back to sleep.
One thing I forgot to mention: on the day of surgery, around midday, I felt a very sharp pain all along my right shoulder, and down my right arm. I thought I might be having a heart attack (excepting it was on the wrong side of the body. I think.), but I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want anyone messing with me any further. The next day, I mentioned it to the nurse and she said that it was due to the general anesthesia, that getting it affected the blah blah blah, which made the shoulder really hurt because of blah blah blah blah blah. It made sense to me at the time, but I wasn’t, as Oprah would say, living my very best life just then in the listening department. I was just satisfied that there was a reason and that it would go away.
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