So eight months ago I had a pain in my armpit...
Finally, on April 6th, I was able to start moving on from a lingering threat inside my body. At first it was painful and doctors couldn't tell me what it was. They tried with minimal test and got nowhere. Then more evasive tests were done that revealed a Giant Celled Tumor With Low Malignant Potential. Okay. Let's get it out of there. Well, first they wanted to do an MRI. That's too expensive. Okay, let's do the surgery. No wait, your insurance would rather take the chance of letting become worse then pay out the money as there is a pre-existing condition clause of six months. Which ended in March. March rolls around... Oh yeah, we're supposed to call you and set something up. Looks like you'll have to come in again as a formality; then we'll set a date. April 6th because that date.
I can't sleep the night before. But I finally get a little and wake up at 5:59AM to watch my clock change a minute and the alarm goes off. I press snooze. I lay there awake. The alarm goes off again. I turn it off and stumble into the shower. Lori and I finally get ready to go. We're late as usual for us. We roll into the surgical building at 7:40 or so. We check in. We wait for a little bit and then are taken to a room for me to change and have the same questions asked that I've already answered. But whatever. I was asked what I was having done about 5 times.
"I'm having a Giant Celled Tumor with low malignant potential removed." I responded pretty much every time.
The doctor comes in to make sure there aren't any questions before the surgery. I ask if I can keep it. Sadly, I can't. They want to cut it up and look at it. Oh well.
After waiting a bit, I'm saying bye to Lori and being wheeled down to my operating room; more worried about how Lori is going to hold up during the time I'm completely out of it. The nurse and I talk about the weather and whatnot until I arrive at the room. It's white and sterile. As it should be. I slide over from the bed to the operating table that holds this odd bag-mattress thing. It's got tiny beads or something in it. I slide down so my head rests on the pillow. Nurses and doctors are moving around in their dance number that they routinely do. A doctor begins to tell me what will happen. He eventually tells me he's going to start injecting the anesthesia into the I.V. Within seconds I feel the tingle and the sleepiness. I giggle. I giggle some more and then I hear nothing.
Seconds; to me; I wake up somewhere else. It's a little fuzzy. There's a nurse standing there. There's always a nurse just standing there when you wake up from surgery. She immediately starts fiddling around, making sure I'm okay. I'm shaking a bit; like a shiver for a few seconds then stopping. Then again. She gives me something for it in my I.V. I stop.
I manage to muster a question, "When do I see my wife?"
"When we wheel you back to the other area, she can come see you."
I'm apparently satisfied with that answer as I start to wonder if i can move without pain and if everything went okay.
"Well, I'm awake. I'm guessing everything went okay." I say.
"Everything went fine." She responds in a reassuring voice. She's moving at lightning speed to me right now. She feeds me ice chips. They're great. Who knew ice chips were so great? She says some other stuff I don't quite remember. Something about how I was shivering and now I'm not.
More ice chips.
Finally, we're on our way. I have no idea where we are, so I don't know how long until the other area.
We reach the next room I'll be hanging out in. The nurse continues to fill out stuff on a computer. "Would you like some juice? We have Cranberry, Apple..."
"Apple. Please."
Lori arrives with a great look of relief. She already knew I was fine, but hadn't seen me yet. I'm elated to see her. I drink my apple juice, take a pain pill, and just chill with Lori. After a little more waiting, I'm allowed to get dressed and I'm wheel-chaired downstairs with Lori who then goes to get the car. I'm not in a lot of pain thankfully. And just a little woozy. But surprisingly alert. After a quick trip to Costco for pain meds, we head home; like it was any other day.
Later that afternoon, I finally acted on my desire for a Peanut Buster Parfait. We head to DQ and it was delicious. I spend the majority of the day playing City of Heroes/Villains. We round out the night watching WWE Raw where Batista, my favorite wrestler, returns at the end after being out on injury and recovery. Damn you Jim Glasgow for getting me into wrestling. :P
The following day, today, I'm at work. They must have put a gallon of local anesthetic in me because my arm is still partially numb to touch. I worry about two things; A) the pain that may come once the numbness wears off. And 2) what if there is some nerve damage and it'll just be numb... There are a lot of nerve clusters there. The best way I can describe the feeling is take your hand and place it against someone hand. Hand opened, fingers spread. Now take you index and thumb and rub the two index fingers that are touching between your hand and the other persons. Feels weird right? That's what the back side of my upper arm feels like. I guess we'll see what happens.
I wonder how long before I can disc golf, or bowl, or shoot guns, or golf. Soon I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment