A letter that I wrote to my dad after a routine surgery turned near disasterous
My phone won't pull up dads email address, and I'm too tired to go get it downstairs. Will you forward this to him?
Thank you!
Well... I ended up hemorrhaging internally and I had to go in for an emergency second surgery to remove the blood and cauterize everything as you know.
I was too unstable initially for the second surgery, so I had to get blood transfusions before they could even take me back to the OR.
We knew I was having problems fairly early on because I passed out in the bathroom (a first and hopefully last!) and came to with a room full of my very concerned coworkers. I never stopped breathing thankfully ( I've seen it happen..In fact that's how my rotator cuff was torn 4 years ago! I was really worried that the nurses would hurt themselves while helping me!) I was planning on going home 15 minutes later. The passing out and low blood pressure changed that in a hurry! I'm just glad that I had gotten my pants up before they came in!
My blood pressure dropped dangerously low (62/47 and once somewhere around 55/35 at one point--most people are either unconscious at those numbers or seriously hard to wake up, but my body actually compensated fairly well, although it made my hands and feet numb, light headed (imagine that!), sweaty, and very nauseated. I could always tell when my pressures were dropping and got good enough to guess my BP fairly accurately. Blood pressures in the 70/40's don't feel too great either by the way! I was pretty level-headed during it all and very coherent (but a bit teary eyed too). So much so that the doctors thought I was having a reaction to pain meds at first. I spent most of the day with the head of my bed slanted down and feet up in the air to maintain blood flow to my brain. Being a nurse definitely helped so that I didn't panic. Being young-ish, healthy, and having great nurses and doctors might have just saved my life yesterday.
I'm just so grateful that this happened before I went home. That could have been really bad.
I had to have an emergency CT scan, and I've been poked all over with needles. I was given lots and lots of IV fluids, so I'm puffy and bruised, I get winded when I walk up the stairs now ( that will probably take a month to clear up ) and of course, I ended up staying overnight at the hospital. I really gave my coworkers and doctors a scare. In fact Dr Leavitt really flogged himself over my case. He is a great surgeon, and after 20 years, this was a first for him. I swear that nurses are the hardest / worst patients! I lost an estimated 1350-1500 ml of blood (to put It in perspective, a large pop bottle is 2000 ml, or an 8 ounce glass of water is 240 ml.) That's a lot of blood to lose.
Lucky me! :( but it could have been a lot worse. I am so thankful that my body was buffered by prayers and faith!
My neighbor had my kids over after school so that they would have fun, and not worry as much about me, since they expected me home. Shauna dropped everything and came to my house to watch the kids. (I haven't told them about my bleeding, so please be discreet if you tell anyone . I'm not sure if I'm going to tell them at all).
I stayed alert and conscious when I should have been unconscious and my body did an amazing job of trying to compensate (that's the nurse side of me talking). I KNOW that all of the prayers offered on my behalf acted as a buffer. I was able to have a blessing in the PACU thanks to josh and my anesthetist, and dr leavitt prayed with me before my first surgery. (at first they thought my surgery was textbook perfect. Ha! Ha! Jokes on us I guess!) It's amazing to live in a place where priesthood holders are so readily available. Even my catholic friends offered prayers in my behalf.
As for now, I am home. Pretty exhausted, but comfortable. I had to go hours without much pain medicine yesterday because it was too dangerous to give me anything that would make my blood pressure go lower. My stomach is very swollen since the second surgery. When people have two surgeries in one day, the second one usually packs a whallop. And boy did it! It hit me so hard last night that I couldn't even shift my position in bed because of the pain, but I'm a lot better now.
This was me "looking better" yesterday. My lips actually had a bit of pink to them here. Josh said that when my lips were the same color as my white pillow case, that I don't look so hot. I was getting two more IVs placed in this picture. You always know that nurses are worried when they put in 3 IVs...
Sorry to make this so long and crazy typos. (I'm totally drugged right now) but I wanted you to know first hand. I also need prayers for healing and gratitude to be offered up for me for the next few days.
Love you dad!
Dixie
Dixie right after her first surgery when she was feeling great. Guess joke was on her!
