Outpatient doesn't mean easier...

The morning of surgery my nocturnal body decided to wake up at 3:50am. I didn't have to get up until 5 so I layed in bed and listened to Klove. It was so encouraging to listen to all the songs about God carrying me no matter what is going on in my life.

We left for the hospital at 5:45am. I'm still not sure why check-in takes so long..it took about an hour to get checked-in. They finally put me in my room at 7. The room was really big so my grandparents and everyone got to stay in the room too. Since we couldn't use my PICC line they had to start an IV. They had to take blood too so they had to find 2 veins. The nurse didn't have any problem finding the veins. She actually said that I have such great veins. Are you kidding me?! I started laughing because I couldn't believe she actually said that.

They took me to the holding room at 7:45. Only 2 people could come with me so my parents went. The surgeon and anaesthesiologist were waiting to talk with us. The nurse gave me something to start to relax me. I wasn't in holding for more than 10 minutes. Everything happened so fast in there. They took me to the OR right at 8. When they were taking me to the operating room, it felt like a movie. Everything was white and freezing cold. Everyone had the blue scrubs on and everyone was looking at me being wheeled past. It seemed like everything was in slow motion..I guess the relaxing medicine was starting to work. In the OR, they made me get on the table by myself. They didn't say anything to me, they just put the mask on my face and that's all I remember. The surgery lasted an hour and then I was put in recovery. I woke up after being in recovery for 45 minutes. I woke up in a ton of pain so they gave me lots of pain medicine. The pain medicine they gave me was 10 times stronger than morphine. I was still in a ton of pain though. My chest and neck hurt. It really confused me because the port was put in my chest, not my neck. They finally took me back to my room after being in recovery for an hour and a half. The gown I wore had a place to hook it up to a machine and the machine put warm air into the gown. It was the best part of surgery! It kept me so warm.

Once I was back in my room, I started hurting more. My mom said that I had a bandage on my neck too. So we asked the nurse why it was there. Apparently they had to cut my neck to get the catheter from the port into a bigger vein in the neck. I was in so much pain so the nurse finally agreed to giving me morphine. We tried to get the pain under control for a couple hours. They sent me home at 1:45pm. Since they attached the port to a muscle in my chest, it hurts every time I move or talk. The worst pain is my neck though.

When I got home, I was so nauseous from the anesthesia. Tuesday night I noticed that I was starting to get a rash on my chest. They hadn't washed the cleaning stuff off so i was covered in it. The rash kept getting worse everyday. It's all over my chest, neck, face, arms, and any where else they put the cleaner. Apparently I'm really really allergic to whatever they cleaned me with. Yesterday my chest and neck were so swollen. You can't even see my collar bones. So we went to the after hours clinic last night. They gave me a steroid shot and told me to keep taking benadyrll. After we got home the itching was out of control. I couldn't take it anymore. I was so frustrated. My mom went to a health food store at 9 last night to see if they had anything to help. She got some spray and it finally calmed the itching and pain down. I haven't been sleeping good because of the pain from surgery and the hives all over me.

Since the surgery was outpatient I thought it wouldn't be a big deal at all. I was so wrong. I'm still in a lot of pain and feel horrible. The surgery was bigger than we thought and on top of that I have hives. I don't have my appetite back either. I'm praying that the hives will go away soon and that the incisions will heal fast.

Thank you for all your prayers! Please keep praying for me to recover soon.