Blessings, Complaints, and Falling in Love

DISCLAIMER:  This post is full of TMI and graphic descriptions.  If you are uncomfortable with either of these, please stop reading now, amateur.

"How are you feeling?" asked the nurse as she strapped the blood pressure cuff to my arm.

"Like shit," I replied, not meaning to startle her with my perhaps too direct response.

Perhaps both of you recall my past complaints about my postpartum body (here and here).  Long story short, I was apparently never made to carry babies, nor to deliver them.  Of course of all the women in the world who want to be mamas, I am probably one of the better ones to be blessed/cursed with this issue.  I never felt the need to carry my own children for nine months; I was fine with "outsourcing" it.  Ever since I learned about adoption as a little kid, I knew it was something I wanted to do, regardless of whether or not I was able to have children myself.  In fact, I hated being pregnant, and still have no desire to reenact that drama.  So when the doctors told me that if/when I wanted to get all of my abominations repaired, I had to be done having kids.  When I eventually became a mom of two (one biological, one adopted), I finally decided to take care of my own medical issues that resulted from pregnancy and childbirth.  To recap:

1. After 22+ hours of labor, 4 hours of pushing, and 3.5 hours of crowning, I tore horrifically.  They called it a "third degree starburst tear".  To give you a little perspective, the degree of lady tears go up to four - all the way through to yo' booty.  Fortunately, I stopped just short of this, but still tore in all directions, through skin, tissue, and muscle.  They told me I ended up with more sutures than I would have if I'd had a C-section.  (Thanks a lot, Dr. Shithead.)
2. This resulted in a prolapsed uterus.  Put delicately: my baby maker was falling out of my crotch.
3. My abdominal muscles split so far apart during pregnancy that they never could go back together.  This is beyond the normal postpartum "pooch" that most women get.  My muscle groups were about two inches apart and my organs were starting to fall through...
4. ...which led to two ventral hernias where my organs actually did poke through the overstretched connective tissue.

None of these things are that bizarre by themselves, I suppose.  However, they are weird for someone who had ONE baby in her late 20s.  So, ultimately, my precious princess came in like the wrecking ball that she is - our darling Hulk.

Right after we delivered Hulk, I was rolled off to surgery to repair my grotesque rip.  The recovery from that was long, difficult, and painful.  I mean really (run-on sentence alert), who doesn't like taking care of a newborn while dealing with an injury that is so severe that you can barely go to the bathroom but, when you are brave enough to do so, you can't even use toilet paper but have to use a peribottle instead?  Being reduced to tears because you are in so much pain when you try to drop a deuce?  Nailed it.  Learning to breastfeed when it is too painful to sit in a chair?  A dream come true.  Postpartum emotions are brutal enough but compound that with a major physical recovery and inundation with media and Facebook images of motherhood looking like this...

...when it really looks more like this.

However, life did go on after all of that.  I made as full a recovery as I possibly could have without more surgery, and bought new clothes to conceal my tummy as much as possible.  Over the following three years, I quit running, braced myself jumping, and made more frequent trips to the bathroom.  I found different ways to work out so as not to permanently worsen anything (I hope) and explored other interests.  Basically, I got used to living with a lot of limitations - something that has been extraordinarily difficult for a do-it-myself person like me.

After we brought Bathrobe home last fall and got settled into our new normal as a family of four, I knew I wanted to start actively preparing for a surgery that had been a hypothetical thing for the previous three years.  After months of doctor's appointments, consultations, exams, blood tests, and waiting, we finally set a date.  I excitedly waited for just over another month as Habibi and I got ourselves ready both at home and at work for a long-term absence.  

The night before surgery came and I dutifully showered with Hibliclens (treacherous to the skin!) and reflected on just how huge the upcoming change would be.  Even though I doubted we would ever have another biological baby anyway, I resented the fact that I had to make such a final and definite decision under these circumstances.  I had previously confided in Habibi, and shared some of my fears about major surgery and anesthesia with him.  Some of these fears were rational, some were not.  But here's the thing:  I knew it was time, and that I needed to get this done before it became worse with age.  I'm vain, but I'm not so vain that I'd undergo a major operation unless I thought it would improve my quality of life (and subsequently, the lives of those closest to me).  I knew I would be a better mom (/wife/friend/person!!) if I could feel more like myself again after four long years of being something that merely resembled me.  Plus, in terms of my physical health, it was the only remaining option.  It was the right (and only) choice, even if it wasn't glamorous.

The next day, I rode the adrenaline wave to the operating room.  I joked with the nurses, reiterated my name and date of birth no fewer than 3,000 times, and then promptly zonked out.  When I woke up, I was in a huge room with three nurses who were all busy with something, and I was slurring my speech.  It's still pretty foggy in my memory.  Being hopped up on narcotics is fun for a short time...

...but then you get nausea.  And you can't take more than two tiny bites of something that they force you to choke down so you can take more meds.  And when you take those meds, you almost dry heave because you have had no food in your system for three days.  And then they decide to switch you sooner than they would most patients to non-narcotic painkillers.  And then these painkillers (just Motrin and Tylenol) don't quite get the job done because you feel like you have a train barreling through your back because your abs are so tight that you can't stand up straight and you have a bladder sling tethered to your tailbone.  And you feel like your stomach is going to rip open because your skin is so stretched.  And then your body starts shaking uncontrollably and involuntarily because you are in so much pain.  And then you get dehydrated because even water makes you want to barf your brains out.  And then they order chest x-rays because you keep telling them you can't breathe.  And then the x-ray whores slam your body flat against the wall (remember you can't stand up straight) and hurl it down on a cold, hard slab (remember you can't lay flat) and you make a yelping sound that you didn't know you could muster up on account of the searing pain.  And then they tell you that you have pneumonia and put you on even more meds.  And then they urge you to use a breathing device to measure your inhalation capacity.  And every time you use it, you want to die because your ribs can't possibly expand any further, despite the fact that your oxygen levels are dropping.  And then a nurse asks if you want to brush your teeth and you think "EFF THAT!  I can't even reach the waist-level counter with my chest right now, let alone stand in front of it and spit in the sink!"  And even though you have begrudgingly done everything they have asked you to do (walk around the floor - through the nausea and pain; breathe with that stupid incentive spirometer; try try try to choke down food) and all the nurses have described you as "the model patient" at shift changes, no one can quite figure out why you aren't healing faster.  And then they tell you that you can go home after you pass your "voiding trials" (basically peeing without a catheter) three times.  And then you become motivated like never before because, after all, you were only supposed to spend one night in the hospital, but you've already been there for three.  And when you finally pee that third time, you sob for joy because you are getting the hell outta there.  And when you walk out the door, a nurse kindly pulls up the back of your pants because you don't even care anymore and couldn't be bothered to put them on all the way once you got the green light to leave.

That is what three surgeries at once feels like.

I'm no doctor, but I can tell you in relatively general terms what I had done.  To fix the prolapsed uterus, the surgeon placed a sling under my bladder, tethered it to my tailbone and applied some stitching in other parts of my pelvic floor.  She might have put a mesh in there but honestly, I don't even know at this point.  I'll ask her later.  Obviously, there is more to it than that, but that's the overall idea.  Anyway, once she was finished with all that, a second surgeon came in (plastics) and made a long, grotesque incision below my bikini line that spans from the back of one hip to the other.  He then separated the skin from the muscle and tissue below and repaired the two hernias before sewing my two rectus abdominus muscle groups back together.  After that, they removed all excess skin and fat (I'm pleased to say there wasn't much - silver lining?), re-created my belly button (I have one again!), and re-draped the skin.  They also placed three drainage tubes (nasty shit, lemme tell ya) in the pubic area that typically stay in place for 2-4 weeks.  

I am now just over a week post-op and have been surprised by a few things.  Of course, I expected all of the above bullshit to come to fruition.  No one expects surgery to be a walk in the park, but there were some things that caught me off guard...perhaps nothing more so than the physical limitations that come from the inability to use my abdominal muscles.  In fact, to pass the time (because I have lots of that these days), I have been compiling a mental list of all of the things you need your abs to do, things that have made my week a wee bit challenging.  Some are obvious, some might not be.  But here they are, all the same:

• Coughing
• Sneezing
• Blowing your nose
• Dry heaving/puking
• Gag reflexes
• Gargling (Think about how you use your muscles to steady yourself when you stand up and tip your head back!)
• Brushing your hair
• Lifting/putting down the toilet lid
• Peeing
• Pooping
• Farting (This one is a TREMENDOUS joy when you get it back post-operatively.  Holy shit, what a relief.  Honestly, it is cause for a friggin' parade.)
• Burping
• Hiccuping
• Laying down (in any direction)
• Impossible to lay down on your side (my preferred way to sleep)
• Sitting up/down
• Reclining
• Any kind of forward/backward bending
• Looking over your shoulder (or anything that involves any sort of twisting)
• Squatting
• Kneeling down
• Picking up anything
• Climbing stairs
• Laughing
• Crying
• Breathing
• Being startled
• Getting in/out of the car
• Getting dressed (especially bending over to pull up your pants)
• Opening bottles, jars (especially the childproof pill bottles)
• Turning knobs (doors, faucets, etc.)
• Opening doors/drawers
• Pushing pumps (like hand soap, lotion, etc.)
• Making silly sounds at your kids
• Whistling

Amidst all of this, it is easy to become bitter and angry.  Why the hell should one very healthy woman have to have four big surgeries because of one single baby?  Hulk wasn't enormous.  I'm small (or at least I was when I got knocked up), but smaller women than me have delivered bigger babies than her with less/no trouble.  WTF?  Did I inadvertently do something during pregnancy?  During delivery?  Before?  After?  What about the bigger question: Do I somehow deserve this?  Why would God let this happen to me?  I am miserable and confused and sad and angry and jealous and bitter and depressed and...

...and it isn't about me.  It isn't about my build, about what I do or don't deserve, about how hard I have worked to maintain a healthy body, about anything I have or haven't done.  While I don't know the answer to why me? I do know that there is something to be learned from this whole mess.  There always is.

God is constantly reminding me that my outward appearance is far less important than the kind of person that I am.  This is now the third time in five years that I have been forced by some sort of physical hurdle to slow down.  I don't necessarily believe that God is causing or allowing me to get injured over and over, but I do think that He uses these setbacks to ground me, humble me, and remind me of what is most important in my life.  Between kids, family, work, and just life (!) my world moves at such a fast pace that I feel spread too thin all.the.time.  I have to be intentional about stopping, or slowing down at the very least.  Sometimes, that means I get knocked on my ass.

One thing that this experience has given me is perspective.  I spent four miserable days in the hospital (shorter than the five we spent with Hulk!).  Suddenly, images of people I've known in just the past ten years of my life who have spent much longer periods of time in the hospital came flooding to mind.  One of my best friends who nearly died in a car wreck spent months in hospitals around the country, rebuilding her body and her life.  The residents at a local nursing home that Habibi routinely visits will live in a hospital setting until they die.  The husbands of two women with whom we used to go to church both passed away after long, violent battles with cancer and other illnesses.  A relative stranger -the fiancee of a prison inmate that Habibi once knew- lived in a local hospital for months, hooked up to machines and isolated from her family and friends.  How am I still complaining about my four days?!?!?!?!

I know it isn't entirely fair to compare my struggle to the genuine suffering of others.  Doing so makes me feel guilty, selfish and weak.  Still, it isn't fair either to lessen my pain and discomfort, just because they experienced their own for longer durations and, in all likelihood, with much more intensity.  No one has the same experience with this sort of thing, so you can't really compare them.  All I'm saying is that I now have a greater appreciation and sense of empathy for people who have had to deal with long hospital stays.  I had Habibi around.  I had an astounding outpouring of love from family, friends, and even some strangers who were either praying for me or doing something kind for my family.  How blessed am I that I GOT TO EXPERIENCE THAT LOVE???  If I had never had these operations (miracles in modern medicine, in and of themselves), how would I have gotten to be so damn spoiled?  People have come out of the woodwork to make meals for my family, take care of my kids, clean my house, send me flowers, cards, Facebook messages, you name it.  When I really pause and consider the people who care enough about my family and me to do these things -expecting nothing in return- I swear there is someone cutting onions in the room.  God has been so good.  While I am not naturally an optimist, I have been doing my best to focus my energies on the positives of all this. Even a cynic like me can't miss these glaringly obvious goodies:

• My cousin -who I believe is my older twin by 12 years- succinctly reminded me, "at least you didn't croak!"  This is true...
• I have time to sit on my ass and reflect on my life while other people deal with my house and usual responsibilities.  (This is both good and bad, but I'm trying to make it good because I am a control freak.)
• I get to freak people out in public places, because most individuals keep their distance when you have nasty fluids and tissues in weird bulbs coming out of your pants and hooked in a lanyard around your neck.
• Other people have to clean and cut my produce.  This is not a euphemism, it's just one of my least favorite things to do.
• I get to wear Habibi's undercrackers (boxer briefs that look like shorts on me) in public.  Best part is that they double as undies and pants.

All of these things are good, but they pale in comparison to the biggest blessing of all:  I have gotten to fall in love with Habibi all over again.  There are some good husbands out there, but the great ones are the ones who aren't weirded out by what comes out of your body.  They are the ones who help you do the gross stuff like stripping and emptying your drains.  They are the ones who help you walk to the bathroom and will stay there with you because you are on drugs, in pain, and confused and have anxiety about being left alone.  They are the ones who rejoice with you when you pee enough to go home, or when you "send the Navy on a mission" without excruciating pain.  They are the ones who help you keep track of your meds because you are in a stupor when you get home and can't remember what's what.  They are the ones who don't complain about shouldering all of their own work and a good chunk of yours because you simply can't do it.  They are the ones who help you in the shower and scold you for not drinking enough water.  They are the ones who camp out on the couch for a week (because you can't sleep anywhere but the recliner with your drains, incisions, various other wounds...) in case you wake up in the night and need help getting to the bathroom or getting your meds.  They are the ones who wipe your tears, buy you flowers, rub your back and never once -not once!!- make you feel like you're an inconvenience.  It's no wonder I think the world of him.  I'm convinced that the Pope, Tom Cruise, the Dalai Lama, and the leaders of all the other world religions would agree unanimously that he is worthy of sainthood.  He has been the Mr. Stability to my Madame Neurotic for the past eight years and continues to be just that.  Plus, he's a stud.

But that doesn't mean I'm not going to complain about everything else.  I mean this is reality.  Come on!

So now, I move like I'm 900 years old, I look and smell like death, and my abdomen itches like hell where the stitches are beginning to heal, nerves are rebuilding, and the abdominal binder I have to wear (to squeeze those fluids out like fresh orange juice!) cuts off all circulation.  Bursting forth from my granny panties are three tubes that end in these grenade-shaped devices that suction fluids from the surgical site.  I have to wear ted hose to prevent blood clots, which is a joy in and of itself since I'm so swollen and bloated I look and feel like a water balloon walking on two hot dogs.  I can't shave anything at this point but my armpits (thank heaven for small favors) so I'm beginning to go native everywhere else.  Friends, it is cheaper to come see me than it is to go to the zoo.  Bonus: If you come to my house, you get to feed the animals.