#72. More surprises - October 2012

Through this whole time of being in the hospital, I really couldn’t summon any energy at all to think about the person who had my kidney.  I did say to my husband, “someone else has my kidney in them”, but it was like a fact I would read about someone else, it didn’t seem to have anything at all to do with me.  The bodily action of recovering from having my kidney taken out was enough to make that break from my kidney pretty real.

All I could really think about was me and how I was feeling.  Thankfully the bad night turned into a better morning.  Daytime is always easier, since there are more distractions, rather than just thinking about how you are feeling.

The parade of earnest young doctors in training came marching by again, and this time I was not so surprised by them, and I was even ready to pull up my gown and have them look at me.  I was surprised when the doctor instead of just pointing at my scars, pulled the bandages quickly off my incisions without warning me.   I don’t think I yelled out loud but my mouth certainly fell open, and he noticed enough to say, “Sorry, I’m just taking these off.”  He was happy with what he saw and the parade whisked out, labcoats swirling as they scurried away.

I was curious too to see what was under those bandages.  There were five little incisions randomly placed above and to the left of my belly button, ranging between one and two centimetres long, all held together with staples.  Then there was a longer ten or twelve centimeter incision below my belly button, also held together with big staples.  There were also various bruises around the incisions, and the big marker checkmark had run randomly,  and then there was some dried blood and maybe disinfectant.  I was surprised at how much a part of me could resemble Frankenstein.  It was quite a sight.

I didn’t have many visitors this day, but I was a lot more mobile.  The nurse disconnected my IV, and I went for a lot more walks.  A couple of times I was able to go and make myself a cup of tea in the kitchen down the hall.  In the afternoon I had a shower.  I had passed gas and had a bowel movement during the day, so that graduated me into the real food world again, and I found I had an appetite when they brought me supper.  It tasted great!
 
The nursing staff were very nice to me, but as I got progressively better, their attention was focussed more closely on the other sicker patients.  They came if I called, but I was surprised how independent I was allowed to be.  The ward was lovely...clean, good facilities, a great view over the city.  But I started really wishing that I was at home.