Great news! I am all done with my CT scans, PET scans, three biopsies, surgery to put in the port, heart scan, pulmonary function test... everything! From here on out it's just the routine appointments, if everything goes according to plan :-D
So yesterday I had the biggest of my appointments: the surgery to take a small amount of tissue for a third biopsy, and the operation to put in the port-a-cath. I guess the port will be good since yesterday I went through the whole poke-the-arm-three-times-before-we-find-a-vein thing again. I don't know what it is about my arms, I just have bad veins, I guess. Or really deep veins. Or something. Maybe I am a robot. Apparently it is routine to give all female patients of a certain age a pregnancy test at the hospital as well. I was in the pre-op room laying in a bed for like 45 minutes before the operation. Just before leaving the pre-op room, they gave me a really mild sedative... not anywhere near enough to put me to sleep, just enough to calm me down. I was told that the general anasthesia would be administered in the OR, and that they'd talk me through it, so I assume I was awake for the administering of that, but I have no recollection of even making it to the OR. The last thing I remember was being wheeled in my bed from the pre-op room to the OR, and kind of enjoying it. I am disappointed because I wanted to see the OR. So either I fainted on my way there (which seems unlikely) or those drugs they give you are so powerful you get amnesia for the past ten minutes. So, the next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room. Getting dressed was difficult, because they had cut into my right lymph node, and the port was put into the upper left part of my chest, so moving my left arm is difficult. I was super super super thirsty, too. And whatever they gave me as an anasthesia made my throat hurt. Other than some fairly acute soreness on the left, however, I'm feeling OK. Not great, but OK.
This morning I had a pulmonary function test, which was basically me blowing into a tube. They have you breathe normally, and then you inhale really large amounts of air, then you pant into the tube, then they have you inhale some carbon monoxide. Good news: I have normal lungs.
OK, off for a nap! The pain killers I have are opiates so they make me feel weird. Urgh. Vote in my poll on the right!
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3 comments:
Yay for not having to do a billion more tests right now! I bet that port-a-cath thingy is going to come in handy, since the nurses seemed to be having trouble with your veins.
Hoping today went well, with the balancing act of painkillers vs. wakefulness. ^_^
I think the same thing happened to me when I had my stupid jaw surgery... I blacked out after some drugs but before the general anesthesia. I always thought they had lied to me and given me the general anesthesia when they said they hadn't, but maybe not!
May I just say that, above all, you should consider the purchase of at least one Ironic Wig?
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