If falling asleep for surgery is heaven, then waking up from surgery is hell. Remember last time when I wrote that I had a very rough recovery? I wasn’t exaggerating. Waking up is where things started to become unpleasant.
My doctors gave me an epidural (yeah, the same as in childbirth) so that I wouldn’t feel pain in my stomach but I also wouldn’t be all drugged out. The problem was that it didn’t fully work when I first woke up. They put an ice cube on my belly and asked if I felt the cold. When I couldn’t feel the cold anymore, they’d know it was working properly. Unfortunately, mine took a bit of time to tweak. Everything hurt, I couldn’t distinguish the pain from surgery from the cold of the ice, and I was still too drugged to be coherent. Heck of a start to a new life, isn’t it?
Oh, and if you noticed the red spot in the comic, that’s the stoma. The term ostomy refers to any surgically created hole in the body through which waste can pass. The stoma refers to the protruding part. In a colostomy, part of the colon sticks out. In a urostomy, part of the ureter sticks out. I have an ileostomy, so it’s my small intestine (ileum) that protrudes. They removed my colon completely.
I’ll also note that even though I woke up with the ostomy, I wasn’t able to look at it for a few days. I hear that’s very common. I guess us ostomates just need to hold on to those last few minutes, hours, or days before everything becomes really real. Besides, there’s enough physical pain in recovering from surgery. Adding the emotional trauma of the horror of seeing your intestine sticking out of your body is something that can wait.
Dan you couldn’t have done better w this one…you explain the difference between things clearly. And your surgery comments let people know what happened but spare them graphic details. Great job, Danielson! Good luck w the new job too!