Breathe.

I had surgery Wed. I should have known things weren't going to go well. From the beginning, I had problems. They couldn't start an IV, so they do a subclavian which is an IV in my neck, I should have said, hold up, but I so wanted the belly thing to go away, so they start to put me to sleep and the doctor and the anesthesiologists and my pulmonologists are arguing about the Razorbacks, what the fuck! I'm not in Arkansas. So, I feel the medicine, say it is so good, hear laughter and when I wake up, I hear no laughter, but male voices, loud and demanding, She's not breathing, folks. Get that tube back down and I feel this huge scraping on my throat and I try to gag but don't have the energy and then someone looks into my eyes, a woman, someone I can trust and she said, you are getting transferred to ICU, you are having a little trouble breathing. I don't want you afraid, I'm your nurse. A man yells, B/P 230/180, I know this is not good, and another man, one with gray hair, I can trust, tells me he is giving me something to drop my blood pressure. The woman wipes my tears and says don't try to breathe and I hear the ambu bag that she is squeezing and I don't feel the air and I think they are not giving me oxygen and I try to tell her but then I feel the pulse ox monitor on my finger and I was a nurse and know if I wasn't getting oxygen, it would beep and it hasn't beeped, so I try and relax and then they knock me out.
I wake a few hours later, but I think it's days later, I hear the ventilator and the same nurse says, you're awake. Here's what has happened, you couldn't breathe. Your lungs are in bad shape, but you know that and you are going to have to get weaned off the ventilator. Right now, it's breathing for you, but later we will match your breaths with the vents. So, began my twelve hour ordeal of making my lungs work. It took all of that time and reruns of the Adams Family to get me from zero respirations of my own, to eighteen. I finally did it and they took the tube out and I spent a few more hours on the heart monitor and then they moved me to my room, where, my son and husband were both waiting anxiously.
The end result, my stomach problems are fixed, I'm probably not going to like the dietary restrictions, but I don't have the pain, it's gone. Today, I'm weak and feeling icky, but tonight, I am starting on vitamins. I hope to make it to class tomorrow. I hate set backs. I hate when things don't go as planned, but I am happy that in spite of set backs and wrong outcomes, I am still sitting here blogging and able to sit and not fall off my chair. So, she lives another day.