Woowoo Baby Woowoo

Well my wiener is gone. This morning at 6:30 with Mike in attendance I removed my suprapubic catheter or what came to be known as my wiener.  The cath/wiener was put in during surgery to allow urine to pass from my body and give my bladder and it's parts a chance to recover from the reconstruction.

For the past 10 days I've  been retraining my bladder to function as it once had. The cath was a safety valve of sorts. A way to release any residual urine. When not in use my wiener was coiled up in my undies. Now, I have to tell you, I have a better understanding of why guys are always messing with their junk. My wiener, which hung to my knees, and yes I'm bragging, was just never where I wanted it to be or stay. After careful adjustment it would fall down my pants leg when I stood up. It would get caught here or pinched there. When it was loose, like in the shower, it was anyone's guess where it would be swinging or dangling. Also, because there was a balloon at the end that was in my bladder it caused tremendous bladder spasms nearly all the time. That was the annoying part.

Not all was annoying, however. It was nice to hook a bag up to it at night and not have to get up to pee. For a while I could choose between standing and sitting to go. It was hilarious fun to whip it out of my fly, shake it at Mike and yell, "woowooo baby woowooo" as I walked down the hall after him. It made my kids giggle when I asked them if they wanted to see my wiener. Oh, and did I say I was well hung? Turns out size does matter!

I remember back to when Mike was having radiation and had his hemorrhoid from hell. For a time he had to wear feminine hygiene pads. This gave him a glimpse of what it was like to be a girl. Well this was my brief chance to experience what it might be like to be a guy. If it's all the same to you I'll choose to remain a girl. The wiener was just too much to be in charge of, especially when I still had working girl bits.

And work they do. All has progressed as expected. I reported to the nurse yesterday and she gave me her blessing to take out my cath this morning. Mike snipped off the end. We drained the water from the balloon which held it in place and with a gentle tug slipped it out. The only sensation was of relief. Now a small gauze bandage covers the hole where once was my wiener and I'm back to being all girl except, thanks to Dr Gephart,  I'll never have to wear a feminine hygiene pad ever again. "Woohoo baby whoohoo!"

Peace,
Karen

Senna, Sue, Tiara

We are home and when I say it's good to be home I mean it. The trip was long and hard and when I say hard I mean hard. Turns out I have a mid line episiotomy! Figured that out on Thursday night in the hotel when I unexpectedly was able to pass my water (how do ya like that antiquated term?) There was the wiping thing and then there was the holy cow thing. On both parts.

Now here is where  I do one of those writing tricks and show you what a great guy Mike is instead of telling you he is. He looked. And there it was. Something I  have never thought of having or thought I would have again, an episiotomy. For the few of you who don't know what I'm talking about Wikipedia says it's: a surgically planned incision on the perineum and the posterior vaginal wall during second stage of labour. See how old the procedure is? They even spell it in Old English. Trust me when I say there were NO stages of labor involved here. Just a surgeons need to get into an area that there was no other way to get to.

I'm forty-freaking-nine! I have not had one of these since Danny was born and he's pushing thirty. I guess I didn't think about it. I didn't ask about it and I didn't expect one but there on Thursday night was one AND I was going to have to ride the 350 miles home on it. If I hadn't had such bad gas cramps the entire way it might have been all I thought about but who knew I'd thank god for gas cramps. We made it home and to bed. This morning the first thing I did was sit in a bath tub full of warm water and Dreft soap. Ahhhh....it made things so much better. I even forgot for a while.

Until the "other" call of nature beckoned me. Suddenly the one thing I was hoping for turned into one of those "careful what you wish for" deals. This would be my first number two since Tuesday. I'd been taking something called Senna to help keep things soft and encourage my bowels to move naturally over night. This had been night four and I had NO idea what this was going to be like. Then I had a flashback to my postpartum days. I waffled. I want to....I don't want to...I want to...I don't want to...I have toooo......

In the end, you knew that was coming, in the end I was successful and called the one person I knew would totally join me in my enthusiasm. Sue. She woohooooed on the phone. We traded a coupla war stories and congratulated each other on little achievements. We are proud of ourselves and I say all this  with  a used Tonic bottle filled with ice and water keeping the girl bits cooled down and while wearing a tiara.

You'd like to know about the tiara huh?

Maybe later.

Peace,
Karen

Surprise!

Suprarpubicatheteristicexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
If you say it loud enough
You'll always sound precocious
Suprarpubicatheteristicexpialidocious
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay....

So surgery went as expected. All five hours of it. My pelvic organs were repaired, removed and reattached. If you want the big words here ya go. I had supracervical hysterectomy, bilateral salpingectomy with ovarian preservation, an abdominal sacrocervicopexy, align pubovaginal sling, a colpoperineorrhaphy and (here comes the surprise I told you about) a suprapubic cystotmy under direct cystoscopic guidance.

Sounds impressive huh? Oh, what is that suprapubic surprise thing? Well, after all of that fixing up, things down in the nethers are pretty swollen so peeing is out of the question for now and my bladder needs retraining. That's right I'm in potty training. Anyhow, what I have is a catheter that exits my body just above my pubic bone. It's how I...um...go now until I can go on my own. Neat huh? Told Mike that it's too bad we can't go on a canoe trip. We'd make good time without me having to answer the call of nature all the time.

So, there you have it...SURPRISE! Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay....

More later when there aren't so many pain meds on board.

Peace and love and things and stuff,
Karen

Our Mother of Marble - aka Mayo Clinic

"It's a clinic named after one of the best condiments ever!" says my eldest son. "How could anything go wrong?"


Well, I'm not sure how to wade into this so I'll start by going around the edge. I'll tell you what I know about Rochester at this point and what I know about Mayo Clinic. First things first, the big building on the hill is a nunnery. Our friends John and Sue (who just had cancer surgery here....Sue not John) took us up there today. I did not see a nun so I can't say with 100% certainty but it looks pretty sister-like.


I know you can sit in a green space in the middle of downtown and eat Moussaka and I  know that you can buy a good Chicago Italian beef sandwich from a street vendor at the foot of the Marble Mother herself. I know that there is more marble in one city block of Rochester than I've ever seen in a mile of any other city. I know that a falcon can snatch a pigeon right before your eyes on a busy street and I know, while we are on the subject of birds, that if you see a flock of starlings you should quickly roll up your car windows because the rain on your roof is not rain. Mike had a deposit left on his left thigh.

I also know that one Dr John B Gebhardt will be doing some 5 hours of pelvic reconstruction on me tomorrow morning bright and early. Seems I've had some pelvic demolition going on. So, He and his crew will be going in to fix 'er up. I say He, with a capital, because He has shirts with his monogram on the cuff, right next to his initialed cuff links. He's big time. He's the best of the best this Dr John B Gebhardt.


I'm going to spare you the details of exactly HOW they did the tests to find these things out. Suffice to say: 1) I feel like I'm peeing razor blades tonight and 2) I know what the inside of my bladder looks like. I was able to see the beautiful web of veins that supply blood to my bladder AND I got to watch my ureters at work. Not for everyone I know, but I was gonna have something for the discomfort. After all the testing we had a mini conference with Dr G and his team and the day, date and time was set.My blood work is done. Mike and I attended a pre-surgical class on what we will just keep a secret for an upcoming blog.


One last thing I know is that the entire Mayo experience has been so vastly different from any other clinic visit that I've ever had I can't help but feel secure. I'm  confident of my surgical team and confident I've made the right decision. I have Mike at my side and he has been and will be my strength.


See you all on the other side.


Peace and love to you all,
Karen