Those were my first words post-surgery. I was thinking that I'd cough one last time before they put in the breathing tube, but actually I was just coughing because they had just taken it out. I was so amazed that it was already over!
Thursday morning my mom and sister arrived at my house bright and early. I drove us to the hospital because I'm the most comfortable driving into the city and my sister would have plenty of time to practice afterwards. We checked in, paid my $250 co-payment and then went down to the surgery center. The same woman was at the counter and remembered us from the pre-op appointment the week before. She made sure that she had my mom's and sister's cell phones and then we just waited a few minutes until they were ready for us.
My mom went back with me - they said that Alison would be able to come back in a few minutes. I changed into a hospital gown and some grippy socks and then we just hung out and waited. I kept having to pee - I'm a bit of a nervous pee-er anyway, but it still seemed weird that I peed 3 times that hour we were waiting. Right around 8am, it got super busy in the holding area but they still didn't come for me. My surgeon came and marked up my head, the anesthesia team came and got me hooked up. Around 8:30am (I think), the drugs started to kick in and they wheeled me out. My mom and sister were dropped off at the first elevator, but by that time I was completely gone - hence the asking to cough.
During the surgery, they had me completely strapped down. My heels and elbows were jammed into blue cushy things, but the one for my left foot must have had a piece of metal sticking through because I had the WORST pain in my left heel for about two days afterwards. I also wish they had stuck a pillow under my legs because I woke up with my lower back practically spasming from the pain of being in the wrong position for 6 hours. Oh - and the metal clamp they used to keep my head in position scratched my forehead. So I woke up with boo-boos all over me.
I also woke up not being able to move my right side. My tumor was very close to my motor functions and sensory receptors. Apparently my doctor had said that there could be some problems with that, but I chose to not hear that. But luckily I was still under the effects of the drugs so it didn't really bother me. The pain in my lower back bothered me a lot more and I made my surgeon move my leg for me to relieve the pressure on my back. "Wait, before you go, can you prop my leg up?" He didn't really know how to take me. And then I insisted that he tell my family that everyone in post-surgery sounded like my mom and sister. I was afraid I'd forget about it otherwise and it was just really important for me to let them know that they were the first things my brain wanted to hear after I woke up. And when I was moved into the ICU room, the nurse in there coughed and it sounded just like my sister's cough. I was all amazed that she'd already be in there, but it was just the nurse.
It was weird that things like that made sense. Alison being in the ICU room first didn't seem like an impossibility, but it made a lot more sense that she wasn't there. And I knew that it wasn't really my mom and sister who I heard in post-anesthesia, but I knew that it was significant.
I had been told that there was a good chance that I wouldn't remember that morning at all, but I woke up remembering that I had peed three times (this also felt significant, obvs) and with the same song running through my head.
My mom and sister came up to see me once I was settled in ICU. They had restuck things on me, maybe changed my gown?, gave me a cool washcloth to clean my face (BEST THING EVER) and the nurse even drew a picture of what my head looked like on the whiteboard across from me. I felt surprisingly lucid and normal when they came in to see me. I kept trying to adjust my hospital gown so it wouldn't be all hanging off me - I remember being traumatized when my dad's gown hung off him when he had his heart surgeries. But they said I was fine. And it was just awesome seeing them and talking to them and cracking jokes and just overall feeling normal.
I was so afraid of what I'd be like after surgery that I just never let myself really consider it. I didn't want to think of myself as not being able to think properly or not really be me anymore. That's what scared me the most. So that I was still able to joke with my family, that I still had music in my head - well, that made me happier than anything else in the world. I knew that if I was still me, I could handle the rest.
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