This post will focus on my recovery after transplant and how hard I pushed myself.
Right, so, where I ended off in my last post was....the cliffhanger.
Well, you guessed wrong, I didn't die on the OR, and this isn't my Ghost. I survived to annoy the hell out of many more people.
You see, I went into the OR at 5pm CST, they cut me open at 7pm CST, and I was wheeled out at 12:30am CST. The surgery itself was a total of 5 hours. I only know about 2 other transplants and mine was considerably faster. If I remember right, they were both over the 10 hour mark.
I get wheeled out of the OR and a few hours later I was being woken up so they could put a feeding tube down my throat. Now, this is where I owe my Friend Carl so much. Pre-transplant he had told me what to expect when I woke up and told me not to freak out. When I awake for them I heard his voice in my head telling me not to panic and that they just wanted to put a feeding tube in. I am 100% positive that if I didn't have his voice, I'd have freaked out and started ripping out tubes.
Just to further strengthen my point. When I was in a coma in 2010, I had to be forced awake because while asleep, I had an intubation tube in my lungs so I could breath. Well, I had forced that tube out of my lungs with my tongue.
That's right. While in a coma, I forced a tube that was in my lungs, out with my tongue.(Yes, Ladies, I'm single)
That's why I know that without my friend I would have freaked out right away and things would have gotten bad.
Back to the story at hand. They wake me up, tell me what they're going to do and that I have to relax. I do so and everything goes smoothly.
I pass out again.
I awake sometime later and I have both a breathing tube and my feeding tube in my mouth so I can't speak or drink anything. They gave me a writing pad and a pen to write with. From what I understand is that most people who write after transplant write gibberish. Not me, I wrote complete sentences and I even managed to flirt with Nurses via the notepad(I know, I'm just that good). I don't remember a whole lot of what I wrote. I think it ranged from "I'm thirsty" to "My chest hurts" to me asking "Hey cutie, can I get a sponge bath?".
A few hours later I began begging they remove the tubes that I'm so thirsty. I got a few sponges of water but that didn't help. I was so dehydrated. The Nurse at the time kept telling me that if I drank too much I'd vomit and that would be really really bad. We had a back and forth about this for roughly 10 minutes.
After they removed the tubes I demanded a Bottle of Pepsi. I told the Nurse that I wouldn't throw up. I'm not a bitch like that but she kept going on and wouldn't tell me otherwise. Luckily, I managed to guilt my Mother into getting me a Pepsi and I downed that entire bottle. I felt like I was going to vomit so badly but I held it in. I refused to prove that Nurse right. She was so adamant that I'd vomit that I just had to prove her wrong and I did. She didn't warn me about much after that. I'm still amazed that I stopped myself, to be honest.
I pass out again.
Some more time later I open my eyes to the Physio therapist and she wants to get me moving around. We do a few simple things, sitting up, turning, forcing a cough(which, I never want to recommend for anyone who has just had their chest ripped fucking open and had their lungs replaced. FUCKING OW), and some other stuff.
I was feeling cocky after all that and asked if I could try walking. Nothing huge but a nice little walk around the nurses desk. Couldn't have been more than 50 steps. It took a lot out of me to do so but I felt amazing. I wasn't even sure if it was real. To walk like that and not cough, it was like the best dream I ever had. I was so excited to walk like that far that despite the pain in my chest and the exhaustion from the small walk, I was reading to go again.
Once they managed to get me settled down, I rested for a few hours and did it again but this time I did 2 laps and with every rest I had more strength for a longer walk the next time.
I think I got up to like 6 laps over 2 days before I got kicked out of ICU and got my ass kicked into the Recovery Step Down Unit.
Once I was in recovery step down that's when things got interesting.
You see, I wasn't out of ICU for more than 30 minutes before I had my first "encounter". When I was wheeled into the my room, it reeked of piss. I mean, like, hardcore Urine. I have never in my life smelt such a strong thing of piss in my life. It was so thick I was coughing and like I said, that shit fucking hurt to do.
Now me, I would have just demanded that the cleaning staff get up here and clean this bitch but my mom....well...she's more "unique". She demanded a cloth and a bottle of Javex. She cleaned that entire room from ceiling to floor.
When she asked for new Curtains though, we got told "No, we hit our floors Curtain limit". Now, I know you're asking "But Randy, what is a curtain limit and why do they have one?". Well, the curtains apparently are so expensive that the hospital can only afford a certain amount per year, I guess and so they can't be all Willy Nilly with them. I think it's fucking retarded but what can you do. All we could do at the time was take it down and throw that thing out.
I think I'll end it here for now. I will be trying to update this at least once a week. If I'm able to I will make more.
Thanks for reading and I left you on yet another Cliff Hanger. Enjoy the wait~
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