The Second Surgery

5 January 2000

5 January
I was at this point not entirely convinced I'd end up having surgery given that it had been canceled twice already. This was probably good because it made me less nervous about it. The surgery was unexpectedly complicated. I had 9 adhesions and surprizingly my appendix was removed. I woke up pretty gentlely from the surgery but the nurse immediately started asking questions. She wanted to confirm that I was staying the night. I was still groggy but I knew I was definately not staying and said so. She then told me I was supposed to stay since my appendix had been removed. I told her she had the wrong patient. Dr. Benton who assisted with the surgery came over and explained that my adhesions had been severe and my appendix was covered in adhesions and twisted up pretty badly so feeling it might be causing some of the pain I had they removed it. She recommended staying the night. I really didn't want to do this because of the previous bad experiences I'd experiences with the floor nurses at St. Francis. And my fears were confirmed. By 8pm all my pain meds had worn off and I was in pretty bad pain. Not to mention I was in a group room with two other women, and no curtain of my own. One of the women had 8 people in there and they would stare as they walked by, pretty invasive, not to mention they were very loud. At 9 pm when I finally got my pain meds and had to remind the nurse again that I was allergic to latex, both for the gloves and then again for the bandages, I decided that I couldn't take it and wanted to go home. Not to mention for whatever reason they'd left in the catheter and it was incredibly painful. The nurse after being rather weird about my request to go home finally called my doctor and then rather rudely took out the tubes and told me I could go home. I told him I needed help to the door and eventually they sent a chair and I left.

I was happier and more comfortable at home.
I didn't really take good notes for this but the drug records show my pain and nausea levels.

9pm Compazine (for nausea on the way home)
10pm 2-60mg codeine

6 January

Midnight 2-60mg codeine
3:11am 2-60mg codeine
4:50am Compazine
6 am 2-60mg codeine
12:27am 2-60mg codeine
3:11pm compazine
6pm 2-60mg codeine
10:34pm compazine
11pm 2-60mg codeine

7 January

8 January