De-galling

Guess where I am? Lying in bed, using a wireless laptop I borrowed from school, waiting for Vicodin to arrive so I can sleep. I have four holes in my abdomen, and just a few hours ago one of them saw the transit of my gallbladder as it left my body. I think it's the one in my belly button, because that one hurts the most. Anyhow, the operation is over with and apart from the discomfort and belly pain I'm actually feeling quite well. It took longer than expected to get home because we got there at 9:30 and I wasn't taken back until 12:30. Aggravating, to be sure, and D's parents weren't exactly the most gracious about having to stay with the baby for longer than anticipated, but all of this is par for the course and it's over now. My father-in-law just arrived with the Vicodin, so that's good - the resident (who shared my exact birthdate and seemed to identify with me all the more for it) prescribed about a thousand Vicodin on the theory that it's better to have more than less, and also probably because he took a read on me and didn't figure me for the Matthew Perry type. I plan to take one tonight and then see how I feel, since he said he himself took one after oral surgery and was sick in bed for three days. Guess narcotics don't agree with everyone's system.

They agree with mine, however - I got 20 mg of morphine upon waking up from the anaesthetic and I felt and feel peachy after it. The pain upon waking up, coupled with cold air drifting through my gown, the huge oxygen mask over my face, and the fact that I couldn't see anything clearly without my glasses - made coming to not the most pleasant experience. But once that morphine was in there, the mask was off, and the blankets tucked in, I drifted in and out of consciousness in the most blissful way. It's a decidedly unsettling experience to simply lose 2 hours of your life at a time when you'd normally be awake. The year's shortest day got even shorter, and the last thing I remember is quoting Chevy Chase to the male RN in the OR, who seemed deeply impressed and hung around with us after the operation just to chat. I guess he liked me. I tried to be humorous and cool about everything, even though the whole time I was doing it I wondered if it was more of a coping mechanism than anything else. Whatever - it worked for them and it worked for me. And none of the horrendous side-effects came true - no nausea, no carsickness, no referred pain in my shoulder from the CO2 gas bubbles bumping up against my diaphragm. I'm just feeling like I did a thousand sit-ups and ingested some serious sedatives. The fact that this whole thing is an outpatient experience is a huge advantage - wasn't too many years ago that it was a huge incision and several days in the hospital recovering. Some Christmas that would have been.

The whole blow-by-blow story is just too boring to go into - suffice it to say that it took a few hours longer than we would have liked but in the end I'm in better shape than I thought I'd be. Now it's time to close my eyes and sleep until as close to noon tomorrow as my body will allow. The one hitch is that I haven't eaten anything except two Jello cups since about 9:30 last night, so I'm bound to be starving when I wake up. Hopefully that will be closer to 7 AM and not 2 AM or something horrific. Nothing worse than lying in bed drugged, sore, and ravenous.

Kudos to the Dems for holding up the military spending bill because of the ANWR amendment. Ted Stevens, would you please die soon?