We Can Beat This

The best thing about having surgery is that you remember absolutely nothing. And, when consciousness begins to return it is at best sketchy. This is why I have no recollection of how I got from recovery to my room.

A private room... small, and with a shared toilet, but private. And with a view over a lovely garden! And flowers from Peter on the shelf. No pain due to copious quantities of morphine. I was painless with no worries. A phone call from my brother resulted in a few incoherent sentences about the flowers.

The drug induced fog began to lift slightly somewhere around 5:45 pm. Still no pain but I was becoming more aware and cogent... and feeling a bit peckish, or so I thought.

Dominican Hospital of Santa Cruz is a lovely hospital with a high quality professional staff full of kind and considerate people. Unfortunately their food is.... well let's just say... it sucks. It was probably to my advantage that I could not eat more than a few bites because what little I did eat stayed with me the rest of the night in the form of acid reflux. No pain from my surgery but I was miserable and unable to sleep until nearly 5am.

7 am: Acid reflux gone but now the pain began to settle in. And I needed the toilet but I was hooked up to so many lines and tubes I was afraid to move. A call for the nurse revealed I was not to use the toilet but had to instead use the bedside commode or a bedpan.

I might be able to spill my guts about my feelings, my illness, my hopes and dreams, but I do not use a bedside commode or a bedpan! Trying telling that one to your nurse and see who wins the argument. To make matters worse the nurse had to measure my "output" and post it not on a nice private chart but on a big white board over my bed. I had to go through this indignity twice before I was allowed to use a proper toilet. GRRRRRRRR!!!