Shabbat was mostly sleeping during the day, but with a very welcome lunch with special friends. Wheelchair there, and back, though. I am still so weak feeling, it shocks me. The distance to these friends is about a 12 minute walk. I was hoping to walk there and just wheelchair back. I did walk some, but the appendectomy started hurting after about 5 minutes.
Something I didn't account for was that these wonderful friends have cats, and I am very allergic to cats. The cats were outside the whole time I was there, but it didn't stop my allergies. Then what happened was lots of sneezing and nose-blowing, which made for a very sore appendectomy area. Such a bummer.
-My arms are still bruised from the failed attempts at IV's at different stages.
-I have been picking off various glue and sticky remnants for 9 days now. Each day I see another patch that I missed. Yesterday it was on gapey...? I don't understand why there would be glue remnants on the left side when the surgery was on the right.
- the incisions from the appendectomy are still raw and sore. I keep telling myself, 'it was only last week.'
- my digestive tract is still mutinying. I can't really eat much, I always feel bloated, and still need "help".
- my left thigh still is sore. I take Emma for a walk about a minute away, and the painful pulling, bruised feeling in my thigh is impossible to ignore. I need physical therapy, and can't start yet. My body just isn't up to it. I do have an evaluation appointment set up for this Thursday, though. It was supposed to be last week.
Just what I didn't need was emergency surgery; it woke up my PTSD. I had a few nights of awful nightmares already (not about surgery, but about really bad things happening). I think the PTSD is actually from the morning after the surgery, more than the fact of the surgery itself. That morning when I had the panic attack because of the air stuck in my chest cavity. It really was horrendous. The worst part was that there were two doctors in the room as it was happening. They ignored me, deciding to finish up with whichever patient they were with (the patient needed both doctors together?) before coming to me. I was gasping for air, wheezing, panicking, trying to get out the word "HELP", and nobody came. I was in the corner of a room for six, but I was the 7th. That meant that there was no nurses' call button; it wasn't set up to be a patient's space. Robert had my watch and my cell phone with him, so I had no idea what time or even what day it was, and no communication capability, and the doctors there were ignoring my cries for help. The nurse came to offer me Optalgin. I told her I need stronger meds- morphine- and she accused me of refusing pain meds. It was like an insane asylum and everyone was treating me like the crazy schizophrenic.
Nobody saw me, nobody heard me, and I thought I was going into cardiac arrest with how my chest felt. (finally the doctor did come, and helped to calm me down, and the end of that story is fine. But, the whole thing was not fine).
Yup, that would trigger the PTSD, wouldn't it.
I feel broken, yet again. Strong, but broken. Does that make sense?
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