Hospital Stay

My surgery was on Tuesday, September 19th, and I think I went home on Saturday.  My memory from this time period is so minimal.  In fact, my memory of a good chunk of October is really minimal. 

While I was in the hospital I wore a cap thing to protect my incision from becoming infected.  Katie, the physician's assistant, came to check on me every morning.  Residents came frequently.  I had a drainage tube attached to my head, and I'm pretty sure the reason I had to stay until Saturday instead of going home on Friday was because my head was still draining a lot.  My husband and I watched the non-animated version of Cinderella and another movie called Five Flights Up with Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman.  Don't ask me what the movie is about.  I can't remember.

In the midst of all this inability to remember, I was able to put together that one of the residents went to the same medical school as one of my high school friends and that my high school friend taught a seminar this resident took.  All I can say is that the brain is remarkable.  Apparently my long-term memory was not affected by the surgery. 

I was thrilled that walking was pretty manageable compared to trying to walk again after a c-section.  I had had two c-sections before my brain surgery, so surgery to me meant struggling to poop and having a hard time walking.  Thankfully these were not my problems after brain surgery. 

The nurses gave me a ton of meds after my surgery, and I'm devoting an entire post to managing your medicine after surgery because it is really complicated.  One of the amazing, glorious medicines that you get to take after brain surgery is dexamethasone.  It's a steroid that reduces swelling in your head.  Some people say it makes them want to eat a ton, but I think it left a really bad taste in my system and I hardly wanted to eat at all.  Between the fact that the doctor cut through muscles that move when you chew (so I couldn't open my mouth wide for months) and the fact that everything tasted badly, I hardly ate for several weeks.  They also had me on several kinds of laxatives, Pepcid, oxycodone (for pain), and who knows what else. 

One day my husband brought our sons to the hospital to see me.  I only remember that they came and we took a picture of me in my hospital bed with them.

And that's about it.  The day I got home from the hospital, my cousin and his wife were in town so they came over for tacos.  My cousin went to get me some See's Candy.  And then I was so tired I went to bed before they left.  The next several weeks I would sleep a lot, but I think that helps you get better.