My brain is spinning as I get dressed and Ben and I look at each other like we just sat through the worst hour of a statistics class where the professor spoke Swahili.  We’re totally confused and overwhelmed.  I don’t understand.  How is this happening.  This is a lot of tests.  Surgery?  How much money.  OY.

As we walk out of the exam room, Dr. Carnovale pulls us into his office.  “I want to show you what I’ll be doing in surgery.”

Then he pulls open a file on his computer.  It’s live footage of him, with a robot, ripping off a mass from another woman’s ovary.  As if the idea of surgery again and all the fertility tests weren’t enough, you’re going to show me what you’ll do to the inside of my body???? Gee, thanks.  Seeing a clip of what he’ll be doing to my body makes me more stressed – it looks really intense.

After we talk to Dr. Carnovale a little about the surgery, we’re then shuffled into Sarah’s office.  Bright and chipper, as she was when she called us into the exam room, she starts looking at dates for surgery.  As she’s clicking away at the computer she says, “It looks like the soonest available appointment is on April 26th”

That’s 10 weeks away.  Are you kidding?

Just then Dr. Carnovale walks into Sarah’s office and says, “Sarah, I am having Jodi move patients on the March 10th.  Let’s schedule Jessica for then.  I want to get her in as soon as possible.”

While most people would be relieved by getting to have surgery sooner, it made me more nervous.

Doctors don’t move surgery patients unless it’s a big deal.  I’m really scared.

As we leave Dr. Carnovale’s office with a mountain of instructions of when and where to take our mountains of tests, I feel like we just hit the reset button, and are starting all over again….

I find myself wondering,

Will we ever have a family?

A month passes by and its now the day of my surgery.  My surgery is scheduled for noon, but I need to be at the hospital by 10 a.m. for pre-op.  I’m hoping to get a good night’s sleep, but with all the anxiety of what the day will bring, I can’t sleep.  I wake up at 6 a.m. – alive, alert, awake, and hungry and thirsty.  I had to stop eating and drinking by midnight the night before, so I of course wake up hungry and thirsty.  It’s like some sort of sick joke your body plays on you, only because you can’t eat or drink.  Cruel.

I get out of bed and stop trying to fight my wide-awake-ness – what’s the use.  I hop in the shower, do my hair and make-up (I don’t leave the house without mascara and my hair is heinous without a blow dryer), and put on my favorite pair of blue Colts sweatpants.  It’s now 7:30 a.m. and we don’t need to leave until 9:00 a.m. at the earliest.  I piddle around the house, wake up my husband, and wrangle his inability to be ready on time.  At 9 a.m. we hop into the car and head to the hospital.

I am a ball of nerves.  I don’t think I have ever been so stressed out in my entire life.

I saw this documentary once about people who are under anesthesia, appear to be “under”, but can still feel everything happening to them in the surgery.  They wake up in a frenzy having felt every slice, burn, tear, stitch and needle.  THIS is all I can’t think about.  I honestly don’t care what they will find.  I don’t care how it will feel when I wake up.  I am FIXATED on being able to be awake/alert and/or feel what is happening to me DURING the surgery.  In hindsight, I recognize how ridiculous this seems, but our minds have a way of fixating on something in moments of stress.  I was fixated on that and as a result I was anxious to get the show on the road.  I wanted to, as quickly as possible, get some anesthesia in me and wake up with the surgery done in a recovery room.

The universe had other plans for me that morning.

We get checked in to the hospital surgery area.  We are in the actual hospital this time, not the outpatient surgery center – cue number one that this is a bigger deal.  They hand us a  pager and tell us to wait for my pre-op nurse.  We no sooner sit down and Maribelle, my pre-op nurse is taking me and Ben back to my pre-op room.

At this point, all of this seems routine to me – live I’ve done it all a thousand times before.  Change your cloths, put on this gown and socks, pull the string when you’re ready, pee in this cup, IV, vitals, questions, questions, questions.  As the nurse is prepping to put my IV in she says, “Dr. Carnovale isn’t sure if you’ll be staying overnight – it’s based on how much tissue work they need to do in surgery.  I need to put you’re IV in the top of your hand.  They don’t like it in your arm if you are staying overnight.”  Cue number two that this is a big deal – they might keep me overnight.

Then, as Maribelle is putting my IV in, it was the most excruciating pain I have ever felt.  I jumped as she was putting in my IV and my blood squirted everywhere.  Maribelle had it on her pants.  It was on the floor.  I was crying it hurt so bad.  (Later, I tell you the story about the subsequent collapsed vein I had as a result of this IV, but that’s another blog for another day).

Once Maribelle gets everything cleaned up, she leaves me to sit with Ben until it’s time for surgery.  At this point its about 10:45 a.m.  I haven’t seen Dr. Carnovale.  I haven’t seen the anesthesiologist.  I am sitting, my hand is throbbing, on the verge of an anxiety attack.  This time the process is different and since I’ve had a similar surgery before, my Type A self begins to distrust their process and think that someone, somewhere in the process has forgotten to do something or made a mistake.  I am a ball of nerves and a total mess.  I can’t do anything except sit there and fester and worry and stress and freak the hell out.

It’s now noon – the time my surgery is scheduled – and I still have not seen the doctor, nurse or anesthesiologist.  This sends me over the edge and I begin to cry.  Just as the tears begin to stream down my face, Dr. Carnovale walks in.

“Why the tears?” He says.

I can’t answer, so Ben says, “She’s just stressed.”

Dr. Carnovale sits down, looks me square in the eye and says,

“Jessica.  Don’t worry.  I do these surgeries all the time.  I was one of the first surgeons in country to use this robot about 18 years ago.  I do about 100 of these a year.  I have a certificate from the maker of the equipment that says there is only one doctor in the country that has done more of these surgeries than me.  You’re in really good hands.  I promise.  You have the best care team in this hospital.”

I honestly do feel better at that point, but I’m still stressed about “feeling it” AND I want to know when we are starting.  I’m hungry and thirsty and stressed.

Dr. Carnovale then says, “We’re just waiting on the anesthesiologist.  He’s coming from another surgery and they are running behind.  As soon as he’s done and gets here, we’ll get started.”

With that update, I take a deep breath and wait.

About 1 p.m. they wheel me back to surgery.  I didn’t feel a thing until I wake up from surgery – and boy oh boy I feel a lot.

My pain is worse – way worse.  They give me several doses of pain medicine and it just isn’t working.  They are having a really hard time getting my pain under control.  It feels like every 10 minutes they’re asking me, “Jessica are you ready to sit up?”  “Jessica are you ready for something to drink?”  “Jessica are you ready to go home?”

No.  No.  and NO.

I want to lay here, not moving – – – and keep the morphine coming…

My pain was so intense.  I just couldn’t move.  Then we started asking for Torodol – an anti-inflammatory in addition to the pain meds – because just the pain medicine doesn’t seem to be working at all.  In order to do that, they have to get authorization from the doctor.  The nurse leaves to check.  10 minutes later she’s coming back into my room and injecting that sweet, amazing Torodol into my IV.  It’s crazy how quickly you can feel the medicine working.  I feel it immediately.  I close my eyes and doze off in comfort.