Another dozy night . . . although I feel like I slept for longer periods, like an hour or 90 minutes. At 7am, my IV alarm went off. This happened yesterday, and its disconcerting at first. But the alarm just tells us that there is about 20 minutes left of drip. So, it was annoying, and it woke me up, but I didn’t worry. After a few minutes I called in and was told someone would be by in a few minutes to take care of it. That woke my bladder up, so  I decided to go ahead and get up and start my day. The leg-massagers (more about them in a moment) were annoying, but I managed to get them unhooked and swung around so I was sitting on the side of my bed. Minutes passed. I stood up (yay! NO dizziness!!!!) and verified that yes, the only thing preventing me from going to the bathroom was the IV monitors’ electrical plug into the wall. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bend over to pull it out. So I had to wait, listening to the alarm, which was still low on the annoying scale, but growing higher. At 7:20, I called again — apologies, we’ll be right there! And at 7:35 someone came. Just in time, I was getting desperate.

Ah! relief. And I had a bit of a sponge bath and wiped my face (that felt really good) and got a new gown. Vitals still good. Had some more meds (yum). By this time, I realized I had come to a decisions: I was done with being in the hospital. I’m not resting, I’m moderately comfortable, but it’s really boring and I’m not sleeping, so I’m not truly healing. Time to go home.

So I order breakfast and call home at 8am. J is happily surprised at my news, tells me a few things need to be taken care of, but they’ll be by asap. No worries, say I, see you when you’re here. I went for a walk around the floor.

Then I tidied up. Yes. Well, hey! there were odds n ends all over the room, some of my things were in the nightstand thingie, some on a shelf, some by the sink.  So I got them all together, tossed the unneeded things, and got dressed in socks and pants. Decided to wear the hospital gown home because it was easier. Packed up everything else. Went for a walk around the floor.

Right then, breakfast came: a bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich on an english muffin. Pure indulgence. Pretty good, too. (Too much cheese, actually.) With it I had applesauce and lots of water. I was just finishing it when J and mom came in — they were completely shocked to see me, hair combed, face washed, eating an egg sandwich. I just looked at them and said
“I’ve decided to go home.” and we all started laughing. I mean, it’s such a ME moment, you know?

My plastic surgeon came by and we talked meds and recovery. Seems that my other surgeon had already given the go ahead for me to leave when I want, subject to working out the pain med/nausea thing. The nurse stopped by to make sure I knew what to do with my drains, and she emptied them with J watching — he feels very confident he can deal with it, and I’m grateful. We do paperwork and I get a handful of prescriptions to be filled, dilaudid (pill form), keflaux (anti-biotic), lunesta (to sleep) and three kinds of anti-nausea meds. Then its into the wheelchair (so strange!) and through the hospital and outside.

Ok. So, stop for a moment and imagine you have a 10-lb bowling ball stitched to your left chest. You can’t raise your left arm really at all, and you can’t use it. Now, get into a mid-size sedan. The front seat was out — I was NOT going to wear a seatbelt. Our back seat has bucket seats, which was a bit awkward, and of course choosing which side to be on needs to be based on how easy will it be for me to get OUT? tricky tricky . . .

We managed it and made it home, driving very slowly (J even put on the flashers and went 5 mil/hr over the train tracks) and carefully. It was hard to remain relaxed and just breathe rather than tense up in anticipation of a bump.

Sahsa was left in the back room as we maneuvered me upstairs (tiring!) and into bed. It’s good to be home. Really good. So I went to sleep for a few hours.