Hospital Experience Part 2: The Day after RNY

The day after surgery is very unclear to me in many places.

I woke up with a splitting headache across the front of my forehead that stayed with me all day and into the night, just making me miserable.  The Tylenol Adam gave me didn't touch it and we suspected it could be due to caffeine withdrawal.  

I could vaguely remember getting up and walking the previous evening at around 10:30, which was my first time out.  It was slow and groggy but doable.  I walked again that morning, despite my head.  The cathetar came out and was totally painless, but then it took me awhile to pee on my own, which was of concern to them but things finally started coming out all right.  My drain was putting out a lot of fluid, which is normal, and it was painless when they emptied it.  

My mom, and The Brit came to visit that day and brought flowers.  I don't think Vicki came on Wednesday, but Robyn did come up later in the afternoon.  I walked often, but just felt miserable, again, mostly stemming from the headache.  I came off the morphine and went to some kind of liquid pain med crap which tasted horrible.  Frankly, nothing could please me on Wednesday.  

My lifeline the first 24 hours when I couldn't eat or drink anything was the ice water with the little sponge swabs on the end as my mouth was amazingly dry and dried out constantly.  There were times I would just sit there, holding a swab, constantly running it around in my mouth and over my lips.  My chapstick could honestly not touch this kind of dryness.

By the time my visitors left, I felt horribly alone and I was unable to sleep.  I was up walking the halls at midnight still, trying to wear myself out.  Just after midnight, on Thursday, I had a complete meltdown.

To be continued...