My BIG. Part 5. PAIN.

Where I left off, I was telling you that I was about to face the worst part of my BIG yet.  I was off the ventilator.  At that point, however, I still was hooked up to a million tubes and lines.  I had a central line, 4 IVs, catheter, and NG tube (feeding tube), and those horrid wound vacs.  For about two weeks after the ventilator was off, my doctors let my body rebuild itself.  I got units of blood almost daily.  Thousands of labs were drawn.  I hadn't eaten in close to a month, so the NG tube was eating for me and I shrunk pretty dramatically.  After being stuck so many times and having so many IVs and because of my crappy blood levels, the nurses started having a harder and harder time finding veins for lines and blood draws.  Blood draws usually happened at night...so it never failed.  At 3 a.m. I was woken up for at least an hour so that nurse after nurse could come and try to stick me and draw blood.  Average, it would end up being 8 or 9 sticks every night.  It was imperative, however, that the doctors watch my levels extremely closely, so they could make sure my body was fighting off the infection and that my kidneys, liver, heart, and lungs were on the mend.  At the time, all of my wounds were still open.  I had a 2 ft. long incision that ran from my knee to the top of my outer thigh that was completely open and exposed (to a wound vac), a 14 inch incision that ran along the inner thigh, several incisions on the knee where they had scoped, a 6 inch incision the front of my thigh, and three huge incisions on my abdomen, one which basically looks like a 3 inch deep divet that is about a foot long.  It kinda looks like a bathtub on my abdomen.  Now, when I look at them, I'm pretty used to it....but each time a new doctor or physical therapist or friend sees my wounds, there is a shocked gasp that reminds me just how different my body is now.  Sometimes, I just thank God that I lived, even though I'm dramatically scarred forever.  Other days, I look down and burst into tears.  Am I ever going to be able to carry babies with an abdomen so ripped apart?  Will I ever feel comfortable enough to put on a bathing suit or wear my running shorts?  Will my husband be able to see past all the scarring and still find me beautiful when we're married in a few months?  

Jon is phenomenal about it all.  Nothing freaked him out.  Not even seeing my mom help me with the bedpan.  My Dad recently told me that when I was on the vent, Jon would just stare at me for hours and hours.....and he'd say "Look how beautiful she is.  She is so pretty.  God, she's beautiful."  And kiss my forehead.  That image is so, so special to me.  And every time I have a day where I feel self-conscious about my scars and wounds, I picture Jon saying those things and loving me anyways.  And that, my friends, is why I'm marrying him.

After a few weeks of "rebuilding" my system, Dr. G. told me one morning that it was time to schedule my surgery to remove the wound vacs, close the wounds, and perform the skin grafts.  The plan was to take all the skin from my left quad and thigh and use to over the smaller leg wound on my right inner leg and the divet on my abdomen.  The pieces of skin that would be grafted were about 2 ft. long by 1 ft. wide....so in other words, ALOT OF FREAKIN' SKIN!  Dr. G. warned me that the skin graft would be the most painful part of the procedure and likely cause me much more pain that I had experienced thus far.  And I wouldn't be vented for this surgery.  No, for this last and final surgery, I'd have general anesthesia, which I knew from experience as a labor nurse is pretty much the worst, most painful kind of anesthesia.  I was absolutely terrified.  The night before the surgery, I didn't want J to leave.  (visiting hours were over at 9).  I was crying and wouldn't let go of him and my sweet nurse let him stay an extra hour to hold my hand and pet my hair until I fell asleep.  J had to work the next day, so he would be arriving right around the time I got out of surgery.  My mom and my Aunt Sue would be coming at 6 a.m. the next morning so they could help with paperwork and consents and keep me calm during surgery prep.  It was the first surgery that I would actually remember going into and coming out of.  You could say I was somewhat of a surgery veteran after having the 5 surgeries in the last few weeks, but I don't remember them, so I hadn't experienced this kind of fear before.

That night,  I didn't sleep at all.  It didn't help that I was woken up for my nightly bed bath (we'll get to bed baths later, they were pretty interesting)... and that I was woken up for blood draws and to drink some nasty pre-op meds.  Dr. G. also wanted ANOTHER IV started (lucky #7) in case I bled out because of the pathetic level of platelets I had circulating.  I think they were up to around 60 by that time.  I got 4 units of blood pre-op and they had many more units on hold in the blood bank waiting for me.  I was so happy to see Mom and Aunt Sue that morning.  I immediately started crying.  I was absolutely terrified.  My nurse Casey (my first male nurse who was absolutely AWESOME) was so sweet and did everything he could to keep me calm.  Aunt Sue told some stories to try and keep Mom and I laughing, because she was almost as nervous as I was.  Finally, it was time to go to surgery. By that time, I was SO SO SO thirsty from not being able to eat or drink for so many hours.  Casey brought a cup of ice water and washcloth and he kept dipping the washcloth in the ice water and putting it in my mouth.  We hid it from the anesthesiologists so they wouldn't freak out, but Casey knew what I needed and that was helping to keep me calm.  I was absolutely shaking.  Literally, teeth chattering, seizure-like shivers from head to toe.  I also couldn't stop crying.  I was terrified.  I was scared that I wouldn't wake up.  I was afraid of the pain when I did wake up, and my doctor's had clearly prepped me that this would be the most painful surgery yet.  When it was time to finally get taken back, I lost it.  Tears soaked my face and I could barely see through them.  My mom and Aunt Sue and even my OR nurse were crying.  We all hugged each other and my they ALL held me and prayed over me.  And then the doctors wheeled me into surgery...........