Part 6

The next day, after talking to Dr. Bean and getting the news that I would need surgery – and  surgery in the next 3 weeks, I expected to hear from his scheduler Charity right away, but I didn’t.

For my regular readers, you know who Charity is and the mention of her name makes your blood boil.  For those new to the blog, you’re going to want to read Hysterosalpingogram.  So when Dr. Bean told me that Charity would be in touch to schedule surgery I immediately became anxious – a super scheduler she is not.

I talked to Dr. Bean on Monday and it’s now Thursday – still no word from Charity.  At this point I am stressing out.  We are two weeks away from surgery and still no word about time, pre-op details, etc. from Charity.  So I called Dr. Bean’s office and ask for Charity.  Transferred.  Voicemail.

“Hi Charity.  This is Jessica.  Dr. Bean wanted me scheduled for a uhhh… lap-ruh-scawp-ee (I still have no idea how to pronounce laparoscopy) on November 21st.  Please call me back so we can set this up.”

Thursday came and went and no return call.  Friday comes and goes and no return call.   Monday morning, I call Dr. Bean’s office again and ask for Charity.  Transferred.  Voicemail.  UGH.  I call back and talk to the nurse to see if she can schedule it – she can’t, but personally leaves a message for Charity to call me back.  Later that day I FINALLY get a call back, but I’m on a work call and can’t answer.  Charity leaves a voicemail with no details, no confirmation, no indication that she has any freaking clue what’s going on.  I call her back as soon as I can on Monday.  Voicemail.  This is getting ridiculous.

Tuesday afternoon I finally flip my top.  I call Dr. Bean’s office and ask to talk to his nurse again.  I tell her, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of Charity to schedule and confirm surgery with Dr. Bean for the 21st.  We’re like a week away, but I can’t get a call back.”  I can hear the nurse is agitated, not by me, but from the sounds of it, the consistent nature that she has to deal with complaints about Charity.  She puts me on hold for a few minutes.  When the nurse gets back on the phone, she says, “I’m so sorry Jessica.  Charity is on the phone.  I will have her call you back.”

Seriously?  What the hell does this women do on the phone all day?  Why is she unable to return voicemails for days at a time?  I’m frustrated and angry and anxious and totally enraged.

FINALLY on Wednesday morning Charity calls and I answer.  I tell Charity that Dr. Bean told me he’d like to do laparoscopy on November 21st.  I hear no response only typing on the other end of the phone.  Then Charity says, “Jessica, Dr. Bean is booked on the 21st.  He doesn’t have any openings that day for surgery.  What did you say you were having done again?”

OMFG.  This b-word has got to be kidding me.  Had she freaking called me back when she was SUPPOSED TO – I would be one of the people scheduled for the surgery on the 21st – and after countless messages I’ve left her, she still doesn’t freaking know what I am having done?  For crying in a bucket.  I take a deep breath and respond, “Laparoscopy.  Dr. Bean told me, when I talked to him two weeks ago, that he had an opening for the 21st.  I’ve already taken work of and rearranged my schedule for it.  I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for over a week now. ”

Silence on the other end.  Then, Charity says, “Jessica can you hold for a minute?” and before I can say, “Sure.” I’m on hold – enraged – practically in tears – ready to reach through the phone and rip her face off (okay, that might be overkill, but I was mad).  Seriously, how hard is it to return phone calls and set up appointments?  That’s YOUR JOB – try to be more than mediocre at scheduling life-altering surgeries for people.  K Thanks.  (I recognize that this might come across as mean.  I’m trying to represent my intense emotion at that moment.  It was incredibly frustrating to have something THAT important be in limbo for THAT long because of someone’s failure to return a phone call).

5 minutes later, Charity is back on the phone.  “I talked to Dr. Bean.  He wants me to squeeze you in on the 21st at 11 a.m.  You’ll need to be at the Surgery Center at 9 a.m. for pre-op.  I’ll send you you’re pre-op instructions in the mail.”

Okay, wait.  That’s like a week away.  Can you tell me what I need to know about pre-op in case I don’t get the stuff in time (I have little trust in your ability to get that paperwork in the mail in a timely matter – and even litter trust in the US Postal Service to deliver said instructions in a timely manner)?  Can Dr. Bean pre-order my pain meds so we don’t have to stop on the way home to get them filled?  I have a thousand questions that I make Charity answer before I let her get off the phone – she’s not getting away from me this time.  Finally, we hang up.  I feel relieved that it’s finally all scheduled, I have instructions, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

A week goes by and I wake up the morning of my surgery – STARVING and THIRSTY.  There’s something about not being allowed to eat or drink that makes you desperately want to eat and drink.  I wake up inordinately early, jump in the shower, put on the most comfortable pair of pants I own – yes the blue Colts sweatpants – blow dry my hair, and attempt to rally my husband.  This is no easy task – Ben is NOT a MORNING PERSON.

We get in the car, late.  We get on the road, late.  I hate being late.  I’m already on edge – and hungry – and now we’re going to be late.  This is not an award-winning combination: This is a recipe for disaster.  I can feel my stress levels and blood pressure rise very quickly.  We get on the Interstate 69 headed south at 8:30 on a Thursday morning.  Bad idea.  For my Indy friends, you know that 69 is a PARKING LOT between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. every morning.  For some reason people can’t seem to figure out the merging as the highway ends.   We hit the grid lock, 1 mile away from our exit and its 8:48.  “AHHHH, We’re going to be late!”, I scream.  Ben calmly responds, “It’s going to be fine.  We’ll make it.”

We pull into the parking lot of the Surgery Center at 9:02 a.m. – late.  Ben slowly drives around the parking lot, passing up perfectly good spaces.  I squeal, “Just freaking park the thing!”  I jump out of the car and speed walk into the building, leaving Ben in my dust.  I walk into the building and stand in line to check in. The line is about 4 people long – because of course, I am the only one who believes that being early, is to be on time.  Ben walks in an joins me in line with a smirk on his face, as if he were saying, “See, we’re not late.”  I give him the look and bury my in his chest.

Relax, Jessica.

I check in, they hand me a square pager, like I’m at an Applebee’s, and tell me to sit down in the waiting room.  A nurse will page me when they are ready to take me to my pre-op room.

We’re sitting there for what feels like forever – but it’s really only about 10 minutes until my pager goes off.  We stand up and follow the nurse to my pre-op room.  When we get into the room, they take some initial vitals, check me in, and then the fun begins.  “Okay, Jessica,” the nurse says, “I need to you to remove all of your clothing and place this gown on.  Here’s a pair of socks and a cap, too.”

Uhh, ahem, hang on a second.  I stop the nurse and say, “Uhhh, I’m on my period.  You sure you want me to strip down completely?”

“Oh, no dear!  Let me get you some underwear and pad.”

Phew.

She hands me a pair of unisex, one-size-fits-all, hospital underpants.  The look like super short spandex bike shorts, but they’re white and the fabric appears to be that of pantyhose.  Ben laughs as I hold them up to inspect them and utters sarcastically, “sexy.”

I slide into my gown and slide on my super awesome new pair of underpants and sit down in the recliner in the room.  The nurse returns, and I sarcastically say, “Can I get a few more pair of these underpants to take home?  They’re really nice.”  She chuckles.  I needed a little light in that moment.  Her chuckle helped.

The nurse then takes vitals again, asks me a few more questions, then inserts my IV and starts a round of antibiotic and saline.  Dr. Bean pops in a few minutes later to check in.  He asks a few questions, talks about what he’ll be doing, and then let’s Ben know that he’ll have Ben paged when he’s done with the surgery.  He’ll then meet Ben in the lobby to discuss how the surgery went while I’m in recovery – it’s his job to relay the information to me.  Once I am moved to a room, Ben can join me.  Dr. Bean gives me a high five, shakes Ben’s hand and says, “It’ll be fine.  Not to worry.”  After that, the anesthesiologist pays a visit, checks my fluid and IV – and promises that I “won’t feel a thing.”  She leaves the room and says, “We’ll be in to get you shortly.”

At this point, I’m surprisingly calm.  Dr. Bean says the surgery is easy and recovery is quick.  It’s a couple baby incisions.  I do really well on pain meds and anesthesia.  I’m honestly not worried.  I find myself in a place of complete calm.  It feels good – like I can finally exhale – like we’re finally getting to the light at the end of a VERY LONG tunnel.  The next thing I know, the nurse is coming to walk me back to the surgery room – yep you walk back.

I walk into the operating room.  It’s bright white, walls, floors, everything.  The room is filled with people who are busy setting up.  I climb up on the bed and they begin strapping me down and stick sensors all over me.  The anesthesiologist begins asking me questions about my job and I feel myself fading away….

The next thing I know, I’m waking up in a hospital bed in a large room with bright lights overhead.  I crack open my right eye and see a clock – an hour has passed since I left my pre-op room.  There’s a nurse at my bedside injecting something into my IV and sticking an ice pack on my stomach.  She yells – like I’m hard of hearing, “Jessica, how are you feeling?  How is your pain?”  I think I mumbled something and fell back asleep.  I wake back up, what felt like hours later, but was a matter of a few minutes and the nurse is asking me to sit up a little bit – devil woman.  As, they begin to prop me up I feel the pain in my abdomen – ouch.  The nurse hands me some crackers and ginger ale and walks away – friendly.  I’m fuzzy, but can still feel the throb of pain from my stomach.  I place my hand on the ice pack and groan a little.  Like that, the nurse is back asking how my pain is, “Jessica on a scale of 1 to 10 how’s your pain?  1 being no pain and 10 being someone just sawed your arm off.”

I mumble, “8.”

She then abruptly walks away and returns with a syringe.  She injects more medicine into my IV and I can feel it wash through my veins almost immediately.  Next thing I know, I’m waking back up and the devil nurse is asking, “Jessica, are you ready to go back to the room?”

Uhh, no.  I want to lay here and not move forever.  Would that be okay?

Next thing I know, they’re wheeling me back to my room, standing me up, and sitting me into the recliner.   I have a moment of clarity as I am sitting down when I realize the awesome hospital underpants that I was wearing when I went into surgery are now gone.  *embarrassed*

As I am sitting down in the chair, Ben walks in.  He gives me a kiss and sits in the chair next to me.  For the next 30 minutes or so, I drift in and out of consciousness.  As the anesthesia begins wears off, I ask Ben, “Did you talk to Dr. Bean?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?  How did it go?”

“Well babe, you have endometriosis – pretty bad.  Which is what he expected to find.  Your small intestines, ovaries, and fallopian tubes were all stuck to the top of your uterus from the endometriosis.   He was able to clean all of that up, free up your intestine, and remove most of it.  He asked if you had trouble with bowel movements.  I told him yes.  He said he wasn’t surprised – the way everything was stuck together.  It looks like your right tube doesn’t have Hydrosalpinx, but the endometriosis fusing it to your uterus was what was blocking it.  It’s probably damaged, as a result, though.  Dr. Bean said he’d talk through it all at your appointment on Tuesday.  For now, he said, everything looks a lot better and to focus on healing.  He said you should feel a lot better once you heal.”

Endometriosis.  I barely know what that is, but I know it’s not life threatening- but I know it causes a lot of problems.  I know most women end up getting hysterectomies as a result.  I’m not in a place to worry right now and I doze back off to sleep briefly.  When I wake back up, they’re asking me if I’m ready to go home.

Man, they don’t waste any time.  

It seems like I don’t really have a choice.  I’m going home.  The nurse is telling me to get changed and she’ll be back in to give me my post-op instructions.  I get changed – slowly but surely – it was really really hard – being in pain and on drugs.  Then the nurse comes in to explain my incisions.  I have two: one, IN my belly button and one, down near my bikini line.  Glued shut with gauze taped over them.  She says, “Leave those on there until your follow-up with Dr. Bean.”  Simple enough – I’d rather not look at them anyway.

By 3 p.m., I’m crawling into by own bed counting the minutes until I can take my pain medicine.  My stomach is swollen, I have no use of my stomach muscles without intense pain (sitting up and laying down is going to suck), and I have a sharp pain in my right shoulder every time I take a breath (an apparent side effect of abdominal surgery – the air used to inflate the abdomen ends up resting in the right side of the chest cavity and can cause pain for a few days – and pain it is).   It hurts more to lay flat than to sit up, so Ben props up pillows for me to sit up in bed.  This should be no problem since I am masterful at sleeping, sitting up, on airplanes.  I actually think I sleep better sitting up.

I settle in and plan to spend the next 3 days in bed, completely disconnected from work and the world, and focus on healing.  I’ll worry about the diagnosis on Tuesday when I meet with Dr. Bean.  I take my pain meds and Ben brings me some crackers, Keebler Rainbow cookies, some ginger ale, and a glass of ice water – and I doze off to sleep to the throbbing of my insides.