Month: September 2005

I’m back.

The IV and the medications I have been on since Thursday have brought my taste buds to a new level of awareness, and I’m not enjoying it at ALL.

While in the hospital, I was on a clear liquid diet, which meant that they brought me jello, fruit juice, and either coffee or hot broth (chicken or beef) with iced tea.

I ate one little cup of jello, and after that, I had a backlog of little jello cups on the side table. They kept leaving them with me in case I got hungry. But they were just tooooooo sweet. Toooooo plastic. Toooo something.

After Friday, I couldn’t even choke the broth down — it tasted like straight salt to me. Jerry said it just tasted like regular broth to him, but I just couldn’t do it.

Today, Jerry brought me a couple JellO Jigglers that he made this afternoon, peach flavor — which I really like a lot. It’s the flavor I ate an entire pan of in one day last week while preparing for this surgery. Gak! So sweet! Ugh. Ate them, but ick.

And then I had plain white rice with probably a tablespoon of spaghetti sauce mixed in to give it flavor. That was good, but now all I can taste is garlic.

And now I gotta figure out how to down some mineral oil without gagging on it. As I said in a text to Nancy over the weekend, “Mineral oil disguised in apple juice is still foul.”

… Yesterday was one of the most miserable days of my life, physically speaking. I’m hoping that was the final descent and now we’re on the upswing. Today has been better. I hope that continues.

Watch ectui for updates. Jerry will post when he can. Surgery is at noon, it may be a while before he gets to the computer.

I just drank 1700mg of Sodium. in a “Phospho-Soda,” to be exact. Sodium phosphate. They say it’s “Ginger Lemon flavor,” and it is, for about the first sip. After that, your tastebuds are blinded by the salt. And you know that you’re drinking 4 ounces of very highly concentrated salt. It’s all you can do not to gag and throw it all back up.

So. I’m supposed to pound liquids until bedtime, and then have another Salt Soda at 4:30am. Check-in is at 10:30, and my surgery is scheduled for noon. After 4:30 I’m not supposed to have any food or drink at all, except for “essential medicines.” I’m guessing Zyrtec probably isn’t on that list, so I guess I won’t take that.

I’m anxious, yeah. Nervous? Not really nervous. I know that the surgeon is really good and the anesthesiologist is someone my father trusts a lot, so I feel very good about who will be working on me tomorrow. I’m not nervous about the surgery, or that they’ll have a hard time fixing my problem. I think that will all go just fine. What I’m concerned about is the recovery, especially with two little kids in the house. I’m not the best at resting when I’m supposed to, though I did better than anyone thought I would last year while on bedrest. And I’m going to have to rest so that I can heal from tomorrow. It will not be easy.

In the hospital, I’m likely to have lots of extra tubing running into and out of me, and pain pump to keep me on top of the pain so that my body can concentrate on healing rather than hurting. I probably won’t be mobile for the first few days, and I’m probably not going to feel very social. Any of you that are thinking of visiting in the hospital, please plan to wait until I am in the comfort of my home, and visit me here. Ronda will have the latest information from Jerry about my visitation wishes, if you need to know. But based on the kind of surgery I’m having, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to want a party in my room the way I’ve had after both girls were born.

I love you all, and thank you for the well-wishes — you can always call me at the hospital — and thank you for letting me rest.