Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat...Where Have You Been?...

I've been in a fight with the Heavy Weight Champion of the World. Well, that's how it feels. It is 6AM. I woke at 4AM with a throbbing in my loins...Not the good throbbing either. And my throat hurts. And my face is raw. Here's how it went down yesterday:

We got to Dallas about 10AM. Got my vitals checked. Blood work (again). Then sat in the waiting room for 90 min. Then I was called back. Put in a curtained off area and told to get into the lovely evening ensemble that opens in the back. I told my anesthesiologist to tell whoever does the shaving to hook me up with the "all or nothing" hairdo. She told me that they would intubate me later I was "out"--so my throat might hurt when I woke up (wth?). Got my happy shot and was happy. I remember rolling into surgery and thinking "it is BRIGHT in here" and I remember hopping from one gurney to the next (sorta). I remember hearing/seeing the anesthesiologist and my doc bumping heads as they leaned over me to make sure I was centered on the bed--and I remember thinking "What is this?? The 2 Stooges??" (hope I didn't say that outloud).

Next thing I remember is waking. Being in pain. Erica (a lovely Post Op Nurse) hooked me up with Demerol. Apparently alot of it. But it didn't take care of my pain really. But caused my face to feel as if 1,000,000,000 bugs were crawling under the skin. So I scratched. I rubbed. So I got another shot of something. And MORE Demerol. And more anti itch stuff. I was told I had been in Post Op for 3 hours. Moonpie came in and told me that the tumor was bigger than we all thought. It was the size of a lemon. Not a HUGE lemon but a lemon. So the surgery was more involved. The nasty lemon left me with a hole or indention where my left major labia was. So they had to stretch other muscle and tissue over to that area to help fill in the gap.

The *huge* dude in the bed next to me woke up fighting and they all had to get a bit mean with him to get him to WAKE UP, ROBERT! It was sorta funny to see him swinging his massive arms and everyone ducking and talking to him like he was 3. "Robert! The surgery is finished! You are in Recovery!! Wake UP! Stop fighting us! Stop it!" He just growled like a bear and kept swinging. But after he woke up he was cool. Until he asked me if I had had hip or knee replacement (he got a new hip). I just told him neither...That I had a tumor removed (but not from where). That pretty much shut him up.

My head, face, ears were itching soooooo bad. We left there at 7PM with vicodin. Ice packs. Funky pads to catch all the leaking blood. Advice to squirt myself off with hydrogen peroxide ALOT and to use the blow dryer to dry myself. Go bottomless and keep the ice on for 24 hrs. By now it had been 24 hours since I had last eaten. I got a salad from McD and ate 1/3 before laying down in the back of the car (had the presence of mind to pack a pillow and blanket earlier). Slept all the way home.

When I got home I went to the bathroom with my peri bottle, peroxide and a hand mirror. OMG. It looks sooooooooo ugly. So scary. So....Deformed (and bald). Really. It looks BAD. Like...I dunno, just really "f"d up.

I slept on the couch. Calie slept on the love seat in case I needed her in the night. Moonpie slept with Carson in our bed. Caden slept in the pack N play in the living room. When I woke up my nose felt raw and sunburned (from all the skin I rubbed off). My throat is sooooo sore. My hoo-ha hurts. BAD. Throbbing. PAIN.

Now I'm gonna go put more ice on it and watch the news. Maybe call Moonpie at work. Maybe not.

(This message brought to you by the lovely phrases: "lemon sized", "Pain. BAD." and by the beautiful haze know as "vicodin".)