Day of Surgery--post op

I honestly don't remember a lot about waking up. I have no idea how I got dressed. Or if I had crackers and pop before heading for home. I'm not even sure what time it was when I came out of surgery.

The first thing I remember is the nurse, Thai, wheeling me out to our car. Oh, that's another thing to think of before surgery. We have a really short car, a Mini Cooper, and a much taller car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We decided that it would be much easier for me to get down out of a car than to try to push myself up, since you're not supposed to push, pull or lift anything over 5-7 pounds for the first 2 weeks...and that includes pushing yourself out of your car. So, if you have the opportunity to take a taller car, do it.

We also didn't have a comfort pillow with me in the car, so my husband put the lap seatbelt over me, but put the shoulder strap behind my back. It was the only thing to do as I wasn't sure if I could hold my hands up the entire time going home. I think I was still pretty out of it, because I remember getting into the car and getting out of the car, but I have no idea how we got home and I don't know if it was still raining or not..lol.

Although I wanted to be in the family room in the middle of everything, my husband put me in our bed with me propped up to keep the swelling down.

We have two large dogs, Belgian Malinois, and they always get up on the bed with me when I have a migraine, so we had to put up a baby gate at the door to our bedroom to keep the dogs out. I did get up to carefully say hello to them so they would know that I was ok. Besides having kids be careful around you, you also need to make sure you have someone that can take care of your pets for a few days while it still hurts quite a bit to move around.

I don't remember the first few hours. I know my husband went to CVS and got my prescriptions filled. I got Celebrex, Oxycodone (I already take hydrocodone on a daily basis for pain, so they had to go with something a bit stronger), I slept for most of the day, kept the bed propped up and emptied the drains every 8 hours.

I had done some meal preparation before my surgery, but tonight my husband cooked the baked ziti that I got from Schwans earlier in the day. Having meals prepared is another thing you can do for yourself and your family to make sure that expenses don't start adding up by having pizza or chinese delivered every night!