ER Part 2

I know when I'm reading a blog and someone goes silent, especially after something major happened, I always just wonder if they are ok. I should have put a post up sooner to say I'm okay. Surgery went ok and recovery....just ok, tougher than I expected.
To back up.....yes, I ended up in the ER much closer to my house. When I arrived there I thought I had made a great choice because there was only one other person in the waiting area. Turns out that they just triage folks faster and have a secondary waiting area once you've been assessed. So once I was in the back I kept wondering what now? I wonder if this is a major thing going on or they will just send me home. I was surprised that it really didn't take too long for them to come get me for labwork/start an IV, then shortly after they came to get me and said I needed to do a CT scan to see what going on. If you've ever had one, you know you get to drink two bottles of this very sweet liquid. Ugh. I chugged it as fast as I could because drinking it slow just made me feel yuck.
Once I was finished I had to wait awhile then the tech came to get me, in the machine I went, and back out to the same waiting area. Now, after I was done....that wait was much longer.
I had gotten up to pace a bit when the Dr. finally came back....it was really strange he just came up close, sort of ushered me forward and said they were going to put me in a room. He was very calm so I just thought, ok sure, I'll head back to a room. Once I got back there I finally asked if everything was ok and he said they need to check out a few things. I asked if I had a problem w/ the hernia and he said it looked to be the case. I'm not usually ok with vagueness, but for some reason I just did as I was told.
Once I got on the gurney the fun began....the Dr. said he was going to push on my stomach to see if he could shove things back where they belong. What the crap?! I'm not kidding when I say he started pushing and it felt like his fingers were pressing through my abdomen to my back. I hollered out a few times.  He said the nurse would come and give me some morphine and they would then try again. I kept thinking, oh my gosh....I'm here all by myself and this really hurts.
The nurse came in and gave me a shot of morphine.....and all of a sudden my throat started closing up and things got a bit spacey. I was soon able to breathe better again, but then noticed after she left my arm was turning red. It was traveling up my arm and my shoulder. I sat there a bit not sure what to do since no one had come back to check on me. Finally a nurse walked by and I asked if she could please help me.  She came in, looked at my arm, and said oh my goodness. I don't remember exactly what they did to help me but I was able to lay there ok. I had an allergic reaction to it apparently.
I waited and waited for the Dr. to come back and try again, but he just wasn't coming.
The nurse had stopped back and I asked her what was going on and she said she thought she heard Dr. say I was going to be admitted. Ah crap.  I laid there a bit longer and finally Dr. came back and said that I was going to be admitted for surgery the next day. He said he consulted with the surgeon and surgeon said they couldn't manually fix the issue--turns out it was an incarcerated hernia which basically means things came out and got stuck, which is not good.
So, off I was wheeled up to the surgical floor.

Then the scrambling came in.....this honestly is one of my worst fears as a single parent. Me being out of commission, having to have surgery, not knowing what exactly to do. I have no local family and I learned from last time being in a hospital, it just isn't a great place to be all by yourself. So, I checked in with the three closest friends I have here.  Turns out, all of them were out of town--one already out, one heading out of the country, and the other one heading out too. One of them was my realtor friend who happened to be the same one who came to the ER to be with me when I had the blod clot as 6 weeks pregnant with my daughter. I have to say I kind of panicked a bit. I texted my sister across the country as she was on a trip to Arizona and while I knew she couldn't get here, I could at least check w/ her. And wouldn't you know she didn't text/call back until much later.
Old nanny was 5 hours away but unless she drove through the middle of the night she wouldn't make the 8 am surgery the next day. We did talk and she thought it would probably be better for her to come a few days after surgery so she could help take care of me/kids.

I can say I haven't felt that alone in well.....I can't even say. I didn't want nanny to come by because she would have to bring kids and that just wasn't an option to me. The nurses kept asking if I had anyone coming and my answer was always no. Speaking of nanny, I had to work hard to convince her she didn't need to go to her second job the following night. She was trying to see if her daughter (the one she is having major issues with) could watch the kids so she could go. Not no, but hell no.  Finally I told her I would write a note or call her other job if I had to in order for her to be able to stay with the kids. She finally agreed. Once I got that sorted I did feel some sort of relief.

I basically just accepted that I would be having surgery by myself and that was that. They kept a lot of medication in my system so I did sleep alot anyway...I would say by the time I was admitted (maybe around 6 pm on the Friday) I had surgery already first thing the next morning by 8. It all happened really fast from Dr. appointment, to ER, to admitting, to surgery....all in less than 24 hours.
Since I missed the dinner window in the hospital they said they couldn't let me order anything from cafeteria. And I was hungry, darn it. So, what does a person do when they are hungry? Order pizza. They told me I wasn't restricted w/ my food and just don't eat after midnight. Ok then.  Of course in hindsight this was not a great idea because your digestion pretty much stops w/ all the medications and anesthesia.

On Saturday they wheeled me down and again asked if someone was waiting for me.  Felt about the same as when I had a prenatal check up and they kept asking where my husband was. Surgery in general went well, I had about a 4 inch incision above my belly button and was wrapped in a abdominal compression garment.

This is turning out to be a long post so I will continue with Part 3, and don't plan to wait another month to finish!