The Removal of MIA in These Foolish Things

Well, the Mass in the Ass is OUT of my body, but where do I even begin to tell the story of how this fucker finally came out?

When I tell you that this was the most traumatic experience of my life, I’m not exaggerating one bit! Let’s play this thing out:

• Surgery originally scheduled for February 15th at a particular city hospital that flooded after I got all prepped and ready to go to the operating room. That was failure number one.

• Surgery rescheduled at different hospital (suburb hospital, smaller, with really great reputation)

• Woke up nice and early before dad came to pick me up to take me to the hospital. I was feeling good and prepped (ugh), colon empty (ughhh!), but I was zen about the whole thing. Even had some time to go up on the rooftop to get some fresh air and say a tiny prayer about the day. I was relaxed and ready to go. Too bad that didn’t last long.

• When we got to the hospital and tried to check in, they told me that my surgery was not yet approved and that I would have to “sit down and wait a while”. Whaaat? I was literally supposed to check in and prep for surgery. Long story long, my insurance (United Health Care, in case you were wondering) knew about my re-scheduled surgery and hadn’t approved it yet. The hospital administrator had been on the phone with them until 11pm the night before trying to get their approval and had no luck. So by the time I got there it STILL wasn’t approved - even though it had been approved for the first surgery that had been canceled. Long story even longer, they made us wait and wait until I got frantic and started crying. I had already done THREE colon preps in three weeks and fretted about having cancer for just as long and if they had to reschedule this surgery again I was probably going to either die of cancer or kill myself. NO JOKE. I was sobbing by this point. Like, telling them that I HAD to have this surgery. My dad was even telling them that he’d pay for the damn surgery outright.

• Finally, even before we had approval, they took me back to the surgery prep area. My surgery was going to go on come hell or high water (see what I did there?). I got nakey and put on the hair net, the hospital mask and the weird hospital gown that had some kind of tubes attached to it. Never seen anything like it, but it turned out to be the greatest thing I’ve ever put on my body. It was like a heater and air conditioner that would blow hot or cold air into your gown, so if you’re cold like I was, you could crank up the heat or you could air condition your whole body if you wanted. I cranked it to super high heat and that fucker blew up like a hot air balloon all around my nakedness. Ugh. That alone made me feel better. I love that thing and want one for home!

• Well, guess what? Surgery ended up being late, which was a godsend because during that time the surgery was approved by insurance. But by that time, I’d needed to take a valium and my blood pressure was still at a critical level! I mean, what the actual fuck! I had been through all of the emotions in the world in one morning.

• Hot Surgeon came in (yes, it’s the same Hot Butt Doc I saw a month ago and the same Hot Butt Doc who did my colonoscopy who was now about to robotically remove my sigmoid colon) and talked with me and my dad, telling us that the surgery was going to be a little late due to the anesthesiologist who was still in another surgery. He said sorry about the week before and that he doesn’t normally do the surgery at this hospital, but the equipment was all the same and he’d do as few incisions as possible with the laparoscopic procedure. He has some kinda way of making me feel better. He’s got the bedside manner down to a sexy science. Even my dad was impressed and swooning. It’s like all of our worries melted away with this guy. Magic. This is exactly what I needed in a surgeon.

• Anesthesiologist finally came in about an hour later. Apparently, he was a different anesthesiologist than was scheduled because that guy was STILL in his other surgery. This guy was hot as hell too! What is WRONG WITH ME?! Anyway, I told him all about my carotid issue and aneurysm and told him to be super careful and he was such a great listener and made me feel heard. Another thing you need before being cut up, right? I had a good feeling from this guy as well.

• Nurses came in, I can’t remember for what, but then Hot Anesthesiologist came back in and it was time to go. He gave me some good juice that made me feel like I was drunk and I laughed and said it was happy hour! They laughed and rolled me into the operating room and I could see the robot with all of it’s arms and legs and it was surreal.

• Then they put the oxygen mask over my mouth and I was gone.

• Woke up in recovery. Not really sure what was going on, but I was like, hey…what if I have to get up and pee? And they said just relax because you have a catheter in - you are already peeing! Ya’ll, this was my first surgery. I didn’t know what was going on.

• Took me to my room and I was out of it for the rest of the day/night. I had a liquid dinner (soup/jello/juice) and some gabapentin and hung out a little with my dad until he went to his hotel. Then I was hungry again and asked for some more soup and she said she didn’t want me eating much more in case I got suck, but then she snuck me some pudding and I savored it and ate it slowly and it was the best vanilla pudding I’ve ever had.

• And then it was morning and time for my catheter to come out. Whee! I gotta say, the nurse was the best - she told me it wouldn’t hurt and she was right - it was just some strange pressure in the pee pee and then I could actually get up and walk around the room with my IV bag. I wandered the room in awe that my pain level was only at a 1. How crazy is that?

• Looked at my incisions: four small-ish incisions and one larger one (belly button, two on the upper left side of my gut, two on the lower left side of my abdomen - one larger where the colon had to come out. It was weird to see, but almost fascinating.

• Dad showed up and we had breakfast together. That was nice. I loved my breakfast of cream of wheat (my fave!) and juices and an Ensure shake. Oh, and decaf coffee! So great. Sad that this was a highlight, but it was.

• Slept a little more after that, got up and moved around, normal hospital stuff

• Hot surgeon came back in and said I would likely be released that day! Like, whaaaa? He said as long as you are up and walking around and feeling good he’d be ok with me going home and resting at home. He looked at my incisions and said that they looked really good and would heal nicely. He also said that it would be a couple of days before we get my pathology of my lymph nodes that he took out. If things look like they have spread, then some chemo is possible.

• So now we wait.

• Discharged after lunch

• Dad drove me to the CVS pharmacy…the one with the cunty pharmacist and she was there…uggghhh. I hate her, but I didn’t have to deal with her, thankfully.

• Home to nap and during that time Best Bud had texted to offer to come bring food, but dad and I didn’t notice until almost 7pm. He told her to come over, but I wanted to sleep the rest of the night. So when she got here, I just told her that I needed to go to bed and shut my door. I know she understands - her energy is just too much when you need rest.

• Best Bud hung out with my dad for a while and that made me happy and then she left. Afterwards, I went to see how my dad was doing and he was laughing because she’s a lot. I snacked on the dinner she brought and it was delicious. And then I went back to bed.

So here I am, back at home and resting. I’ll have more to write later, but I woke in the mioddle of the night and had to get some of this out. I’ll be back later to clarify some of this, I’m sure. I’m tired again and need to sleep now.

I love you,
GS