DISCLAIMER/WARNING: The following post contains some personal and maybe disgusting details, but I have discovered that hospital stays basically nullify any modesty you ever had and I wouldn't want to take away from you experiencing MY experience. Plus, since I really have no idea who is ever reading it, this blog is as much for me as for any of you. :) So, you have been warned, and I take no responsibility for grossing you out or embarrassing you. Read on at your own risk...
Rachel and I headed to the hospital on Tuesday afternoon with a random assortment of loose clothing and a million books and movies (the nurses kept laughing at me and asking if I was planning on staying a month...). The room wasn't quite ready when we got there, but eventually the receptionist at the desk just told us to go up to the second floor to room 212. We wandered up and around following random signs. It was all very informal and kind of weird. I mean, I'd never been admitted to the hospital before, but I guess I thought there was paperwork to sign and someone would lead me to my room and sort of explain things. Not so much like that here in France at least. Eventually a nurse noticed our lost look and showed us the room and then took me on a tour to the shower where I had to cleanse myself with weird antibiotic soap that night and the next morning before the surgery. My room was nice enough--pink walls, a random piece of art on one wall, a nice big window. My one roommate looked like she had maybe had surgery that morning. She was huddled in a sleeping mass attached to a lot of machines and looked kind of miserable. Didn't make me all that eager to be in her position in less than 24 hours... Her mom was reading in the corner, and we said hi to each other but not much more than that. The room had a little closet for each of us, a bedside table with a locker, and a bathroom. Really, not TOO institutional or awful.
After my little tour, a nurse came in to take some blood to verify my blood type. Then she came back like 5 seconds later and told me she had to take a ton more blood for pre-op lab work. Fun. As she was bleeding me dry, another nurse came in babbling super fast and thrust two things at me: 1) an enema package, and 2) a green plastic razor. It was my lucky day. Not only was I going to get to GIVE MYSELF an enema, but I was also then going to have to shave my entire nether region with a cheap CVS variety razor and no shaving cream. I think I would have stormed out right then and there, gallstones or no, if there hadn't been a needle still in my arm... Rachel managed to somehow avert my panic attack, and the nurses finally left us alone for a bit. They really were super nice, and one of them even spoke English pretty well, which was reassuring. But I just got blindsided with that whole enema-razor bit and so was feeling a bit resentful towards them. Anyway, Rachel and I played some gin rummy until my dinner came (an actually okay slice of quiche and a really disgustingly bland bowl of some sort of soup) to take my mind off what I was going to have to do later. Marie-Christine and Régis came to check in on me while I ate, which was very nice of them. Although Régis insisted on taking some very brutal pictures of me in my little hospital bed eating dinner.
It was so weird having to be in the bed when I felt perfectly fine, especially next to my hospital roommate who probably just wanted to be alone. She also wasn't getting food yet so I felt kind of bad eating in front of her.
Anyway, visiting hours ended at 8 so Marie-Christine and Régis left to drop Rachel off at the metro, and I was left alone in a random hospital bed in a random clinic with 12 hours to say goodbye to my gall bladder. Good riddance! Too bad I had to do two seriously unpleasant things before that... But actually, just for the record, neither was as bad as I thought it would be. Not that giving myself an enema and then shaving without shaving cream was FUN by any means, but I survived no worse for the wear really. The shower was kind of weird, and the red, blood-like soap I had to use just didn't foam up very well so I really didn't feel that CLEAN after, but whatever. Then, just to make sure I really didn't have any modesty or dignity left, a nurse came in to verify that I had indeed shaved my entire pubic region. Like I was going to ignore a nurse's order when my health and LIFE were on the line. Although maybe they just thought I hadn't understood or something. Anyway, then I locked up all my things and read in bed until 9:30 or so but then felt badly about having the light on with my roommate there and so tried to sleep. Not sure how much actual sleep I got because it was all just so weird and surreal. And nurses kept having to come in and take my roommate's blood pressure like every 10 minutes and help her use a bedpan to pee (told you you lose all modesty--and most of your dignity too, at least temporarily).
Marie-Christine called me at 7:45ish, I think, the next morning and actually woke me up, which was a little disorienting since I thought they were going to wake me up at 7:15 to shower and get all ready for the operation at 8:45. Apparently they were running a bit late. But a nurse did come in awhile later and off I went for one more shower. I had to use the downstairs one since the one on my floor was occupied, and since I could only put the little blue hospital shirt on after the shower, I basically had to rock the whole butt hanging out thing when I walked back up the stairs to my room. Super awkward.
I hadn't been allowed to eat or drink since midnight so I just kind of laid there until another nurse came in with a pill to relax me before the surgery. He made sure I knew that I had to go to the bathroom before I took the pill, I guess because it REALLY relaxes you and they wouldn't want to have any accidents... So I went to the bathroom, took the pill, and stared off into space for awhile before another kind of cute male nurse came in and wheeled me in my bed down to the operating floor. At the time, I didn't really feel any different, but the pill must have been doing something because my memories of this whole period are definitely hazy and random. I was wheeled into this big room with lots of nurses and medical supplies and a bunch of beds with patients in a row. I remember there was this kind of bigger guy next to me whose hospital shirt thing was a lot more substantial than mine. The nurse looked at mine and commented that they must be undergoing some sort of budget cut and so had started making the shirts a lot skimpier... I think I laughed. She put an IV in that must have been the anesthesia, although I really thought they were going to somehow warn me or something or that I would notice more. I lay there for awhile--could have been 5 minutes, could have been an hour. My sense of time was completely gone. Then they wheeled me into a smaller room and moved me into this weird stretcher thing and strapped my legs in. Without the anesthesia, I think I would have freaked out. I kind of had the feeling that I was supposed to be already under, but the nurses were still sort of talking to me so maybe not. The last thing I remember is feeling uncomfortable because there didn't seem to be any support under my butt and them asking me to move up a little, but I couldn't because my legs were strapped in...
The next thing I remember is opening my eyes back in my room and seeing Rachel and Sara coming in. Apparently, I was super with it and was Chatty-McChatty-tins, but the whole afternoon is mostly a blur. I don't remember any pain at all. I vaguely remember talking to my parents, but I didn't remember that until the next day and so that night I was really angry that they had never called to make sure I was alive... Sara and Rachel said I had talked to them for like a half an hour. Funny. I also vaguely remember being disappointed that I hadn't asked my surgeon about keeping a gallstone or two, and then Rachel randomly found a little red bottle full of gross yellow rock-like things that we decided must be (and that was later verified by my surgeon) my gallstones. One of them was GINORMOUS. Not entirely sure how I didn't have more pain if that thing was actually inside of me for so long, but I'm soooooooooo glad it's out.
Then I remember passing out and waking up every once in awhile and apologizing to Sara for not being more lively. She was so cute sitting at the little table at the end of my bed working on an essay for something of some sort--nice and reassuring to wake up and have her just be hanging out there every time. :) I'm not sure when she left, but I must have roused myself a bit more because people started texting me about visiting and all of a sudden I had like 6 visitors. Ryan, Kim, Greg, Jill, Alicia, and Andrew all stopped by bringing various fun things and treats that I couldn't eat yet, unfortunately. Andrew made the most amazing brownies (I know because I finally got to eat them on Friday-yum!) Jill gave me a whole slew of movies that I barely had time to crack into. She had also had her kids make the most adorable little cards for me. She must have told them a little about me because the cards said things like that: "When you get better you can go play soccer again!" Made my drug-induced haze of a day. :)
My hospital roommate got dinner at one point and asked if it bothered me to have her eat in front of me since I couldn't eat yet. Nice of her. I wasn't hungry yet, but I wanted water sooooooooooooo badly. Finally they brought in a dinner of basically nothing. I think there was some more of that tasteless soup and a piece of bread with some water. Awesome. Things were still a bit hazy, but I remember having to use the horrid bedpan to pee (really hard to do while lying down in a bed) and then I remember trying to go to sleep. Unfortunately, the cold I caught in London had by this point morphed into an awful phlegmy cough and constantly running nose, since I guess my immune system was a little distracted by the FOUR NEW HOLES in my abdomen. Every time I coughed or blew my nose, it felt like the holes were on fire and ripping apart. It finally got unbearable, and I had to press the little red emergency nurse button and beg for more pain killers. At this point, it felt really late and I felt so badly for my roommate because I couldn't stop coughing and crying and it took what felt like an hour for the nurse to come back with another bag of something or other to hook up to my IV. Finally, the drip started working and I was able to get somewhat comfortable and go to sleep.
I still felt sore and tired and sick on Thursday morning but marginally less so. They gave me a biscuit and hot chocolate for breakfast (woo-hoo!) and finally let me get up so I could use a normal toilet again. (Little did they know that I had gotten up to use the toilet earlier that morning--didn't realize I needed permission to get up the first time and just couldn't handle the dreaded bedpan anymore.) Sonja came to visit and brought me a Kinder egg, which I also couldn't eat, but her visit is the first one I actually clearly remember so I think the anesthesia had finally completely worn off. Marie-Christine and Régis called to check in and make sure I had gotten the mound of magazines they had collected for me. :) My surgeon stopped in at one point and basically asked me when I wanted to leave. Apparently it was up to me, which was kind of nice but also kind of scary. So I tentatively scheduled myself to leave the next morning. After he left and just before lunch, my hand with the IV started killing me, so I summoned the nurse again with the little red button and apparently the needle had popped out of the vein and the liquid was just diffusing under my skin, which also explained the ridiculous and random swelling up of my hand... Not normal. They took out the IV, which was a little scary since I feel like those fluids were necessary in some way, but they just switched me over to pills after that.
At one point that morning, I had noticed that my slippers were missing. Not that they were anything special; in fact, they're super old and kind of gross. But still. I wear them all the time in my apartment and was afraid that they'd gotten thrown away or something. So when a nurse came in to tidy up the room, I asked her if she had seen them. Unfortunately and somewhat hilariously, I mixed up the word for slippers (les pantoufles) with the word for teddy bear/stuffed animal (la peluche). I had no idea I even knew the word for teddy bear so that was kind of exciting to learn after the confusion was all cleared up... But anyway, the nurse started tearing the room apart while asking me what it looked like. At this point, I got a little confused and just said they were brown and kind of normal. At which point, I'm sure SHE was kind of confused. Then I guess she found my slippers in a little cubby under my bed and told me that, but she was speaking super fast and kind of muffled so I had no idea what she said and couldn't see the slippers from my bed so she kept looking. Finally, another nurse came in to see what all the commotion was, and the first nurse explained what was going on and said again that she had found my slippers but no teddy bear. I heard her that time and realized my mistake, although it took me awhile to convince the nurse that I didn't actually have a teddy bear and it had really just been my slippers that I was looking for. Good times navigating the world in a foreign language...
My hospital roommate and I ended up actually talking a little over lunch (weird to know nothing really about someone even though you've watched each other writhe in pain and pee in a bed pan...), which was a bit better food-wise--I even got a little cheese with my bread AND a yogurt! I think she said that she had been in to get her tonsils out or something. Not entirely sure. She was in the process of waiting for her doctor so she could check out. She and her mom had been packed and ready since like 10 in the morning, and I felt kind of badly since no one really seemed to know what was going on. Her mom kept asking the nurses, who didn't know much. Finally, her mom left for awhile and must have gotten her daughter cleared because they packed up and left, and I had the room to myself for a bit. Which turned out to be good because I had a little visitor party that afternoon, during which I couldn't help but show off my gallstones to anyone and everyone. :)
Patrick, Jasmine, Javier, and Ruth came to keep me company, and they were definitely entertaining. Jasmine had brought two little felt craft kits (an insect one and a farm animal one) back from the states, and the four of them set about creating little felt farm animal friends for me using glue that didn't really work and following tiny little instruction books that seemed like they didn't make much sense. It was hilarious.
Which was good AND bad since laughing killed my stitches... They all left after a couple hours having left me with more piles of books.
Then Marissa stopped by with tons of movies and good music, and just after she got there, two of my favorite teachers came by to check in on me. They came bearing tons of gifts, including amazing cards for me from their two classes that I work with, a galette de roi from one of my students (the student had torn off the expiration date/price so they said to be careful if/when I ate it), and a box of chocolates from the two of them. The four of us chatted in French, and they were just so sweet. I love them, and I think Marissa fell in love with them a bit too. Marissa stayed for a bit longer after they left, and then she left just before Marie-Christine and Régis popped in to say hi and talk about the next day since Régis had offered to drive me home.
After they left, I ended up getting a new roommate (too bad) who provided a whole new level of entertainment in that she spoke not one word of French. She only spoke Spanish. She came in with her husband (who also didn't speak French), her adorable 8-month-old baby, and a friend/relative who was translating. I can't imagine how freaked out she must have been not being able to understand ANYTHING. She didn't speak English either so I couldn't even help. They talked about her baby and breast milk for a bit, but there must have been something lost in translation because after everyone left, another nurse came in and tried to communicate that she needed to pump her breast milk that night. Epic communication FAIL. The nurse kept saying breast milk over and over and looking at me helplessly saying "C'est trop compliqué" (It's too complicated). I was just as useless. Finally the woman got hold of her friend who talked on the phone to the nurse and translated everything. An hour later, the friend and the husband showed up with a breast pump. The whole situation was so incredibly bizarre. I wish I knew Spanish so I could have been helpful...
Anyway, I was completely exhausted at this point from all my visitors and halfheartedly tried to watch a movie for a bit before giving up. Unfortunately, my new roommate just wouldn't go to bed and kept her light on putzing on her computer and reading until like midnight. Kind of annoying. Then when she finally did go to bed, I had another coughing attack and thought I was going to die. I didn't, obviously, but it took awhile to get to sleep after that.
The next morning, a nurse came in early to wake up my roommate so she could go take her shower. He tried to explain to her that she had to take a shower, then go to the bathroom, and then take a pill. With his miming and my one helpful Spanish word, "baño," we managed to get the message across. After breakfast, they took her away, and I passed out again for awhile. Then a nurse came in with a prescription for the anticoagulation shots I have to take and asked me if I wanted to do it myself or have a home nurse come do it. Um, pretty easy decision. Not interested in giving myself a shot, thanks. The problem was that I had to set up the whole nurse thing myself, which seemed a little daunting at first. The nurse brought me a phone book with a listing of home nurses, and I went through and started calling. No one was picking up at first, and when I finally reached someone they randomly said that they didn't make house calls to my particular street. Awesome. I finally decided to stalk this one woman with a nice-sounding name (that I actually no longer even remember) until she picked up, and setting it all up proved to be relatively easy. Sidenote: I think the woman is on serious crack since she speaks a mile a minute and is just so random, but she does come every morning around 10 to give me my shot and clean my bandages. No sign of a bill yet either. French health care is seriously AMAZING.
Sara showed up around noon and kept me company through lunch and then met my surgeon when he came by to give me the okay to leave. I asked him a million questions and he was super nice. He said gallstones can get bigger than mine but that mine were "pas mal"(not bad) and that those had been all of them. He explained why my neck and shoulder muscles were so ridiculously sore--something to do with the trauma undergone by my diaphragm when my stomach was blown up since the diaphragm is connected to all of those other muscles and so affects them too when it's affected. He gave me the okay for Corsica, although he said I might be kind of tired. And he even chatted about NYC with Sara for a bit. Very cute. After he left, I called Régis to tell him to come get us around 2, and then Sara and I sat around for a bit waiting for someone official to come release us. After awhile, it became clear that nothing like that was going to happen, and we finally asked a nurse what the deal was. Apparently, you just leave and check out at the reception desk. So weird. So Sara and I packed my bags and went downstairs. I felt like I was sneaking away!
After getting a ton of paperwork and dropping 400 euros (nothing close to what it would cost in the U.S. though; that was just for the hospital stay and the extra charge since it was a private clinic--I didn't have to pay a cent for the actual surgery!), Régis gathered us up and dropped me off at home sweet home.
Rachel had flowers arranged by my bed with a little welcome back sign, and boy, was it nice to be home in my OWN room. :) Even hacking lung man gave me a bit of a break and didn't start coughing up his insides until this morning!
So yeah, I've just been reading and watching movies and letting people cook and wait on me for the past couple of days. Kind of nice. The pain and soreness is slowly going away, but I still move pretty gingerly and am just sooooooooo tired. Here's hoping I get some energy back to welcome the old 2-8 on Tuesday. Not that it's going to be a crazy birthday, but it might be nice to do SOMEthing besides nap... :)
Anyway, thanks for all the well-wishes! Here's to no more doctor visits or hospital stays in the foreseeable future...
