Ok, ok, so I kind of left you all hanging a week and a half ago. "What the hell happened" you may be asking. Or maybe not. Honestly, I made it clear I was alive, so I'm sure everyone went back to their lives. However, if you are curious, I thought it was time to fill you in on the last few fun filled days I spent at the NIH.
I went into surgery to have my adrenal glands removed as scheduled on Wednesday February 25. My surgeon, Dr. Electron Kebebow (seriously, his first name is Electron! His dad is a physicist and his brothers are named Proton and Neutron!) does this procedure all the time and his minion, the World's Tallest Surgeon (I never got his name even though he was the one that I mostly dealt with. The man is pushing 7 feet tall! All I had to say is World's Tallest Surgeon and everyone knew who I was talking about.) put me totally at ease that I was good to go. After the routine surgery was done, I spent the night in ICU as a precaution. Honestly, aside from being hooked up to IV's, and being full of the CO2 that they pumped into my belly to get all my internals to float around, it was a very easy post op. I couldn't get a full breath because, I thought, of all the air in my belly, but I didn't need any pain meds and was walking with my nurse up and down the halls like a champ. Well, like a champ that just had fairly major surgery...
I was back up in my room on Thursday and was still having trouble getting a deep breath, but eating, walking and peeing pretty well. My stomach was upset, but we chalked it up to the anesthesia and I drank more water hoping to just get it all washed out of my system. Friday morning I got to take a shower! My IV's were out, the 7 incisions on my belly were taped shut (much better than the staples used in my hips!!) and my hair desperately needed washing. I was feeling good and hoping to be discharged on Monday. It seemed eminently doable...until after the shower when it all started to go wrong.
The shower really took it out of me. I was tired and just wanted to sleep. Doctors, surgeons, and nurses were coming in and out and it was starting to be a blur. I was so tired and it just kept getting worse. My stomach was so upset and full of air and all I wanted to do was sleep. This is where not having adrenal glands is a bit of a problem. We stress dosed hydrocortisone to replace the cortisol that my body no longer produces to get me through the surgery, and tapered down to a normal dose on Friday. It should have been no problem. But something was not right and by Friday night it was obvious that I needed help. I was throwing up and diarrhea-ing, had a fever and was shivering uncontrollably. My blood pressure dropped perilously low and it wasn't coming back up.
A lot of people worked through the night to keep me going and figure out what was happening. I was being pumped full of hydrocortisone, blood thinners and Tylenol. A chest xray on Saturday morning showed a partially collapsed lung and a ton of free air in my system. That's bad. And the fever wasn't going away, but whatever infection was causing it was not helping us out by being obvious. They never did figure that out. Anyhoo, I still wanted to get out of there on Monday and was not going to let any of this craziness keep me from getting home. I was still down in bed all day Saturday but by Saturday night I was feeling a little better. I made it through Saturday night relatively well and Sunday I was back up and around determined to discharge Monday.
That's it. That's the story. The doctors let me go on Monday and Keith and I flew home Tuesday. I was tired, sore and yet SO happy to finally go home. It was a long travel day and took a few days to recover from it. Let alone recover from the surgery and ensuing excitement. But I'm finally feeling relatively good and getting back into my normal routine. They say I can't lift anything or push it for 6-8 weeks, but I'm going to try for a bit more aggressive schedule. Hopefully this week I'll get out for some walks (always with my phone in case I need to call the sag wagon!) and throw myself into home improvement and decorating projects. My goal is to be back in the gym for cardio next week. Nothing agro, but just moving the body.
Cushing's is in the rear view mirror now and I couldn't be happier. Life has been on hold for 5 years and now it's starting again. Everyone get out of the way!!!
