Hannah Montana Band-Aids

I am a really horrible Patient.  I mean, the word itself just makes me antsy and gets me feeling claustrophobic.  I don't like being on forced downtime, and strangely enough, I just don't like being fussed over and taken care of (I know, I know...).  I have a fairly high tolerance for pain and this makes it even harder to just sit still and wait until my body catches up to my mind.  When you don't feel bad, you can fool yourself into thinking you are just fine, and then over do it.  But sometimes you just have to be the Patient whether you like it or not.

Two days ago I had to go into the hospital.  Nothing too major - I had to have my thyroid removed.  I have known that this was coming for awhile now since I have Hashimoto's.  This just means that my body thought that my thyroid was a foreign invader and was attacking it.  Slowly, but surely, my thyroid was losing the fight.  My doctor and I agreed that it was better to put it out of it's misery (and me out of mine) by waving the white flag and surrendering.  So, on a brisk Thursday morning, I checked into Clinica Alemana to bid adieu to my non-functioning organ, and the 4 cm nodule that was making it difficult to swallow.

MadHatter and I had talked about it a lot the day before I had to go.  We didn't make a big deal of it, but I didn't want to just disappear for a day or two and not tell her what was going on. (Stinkerbell on the other hand, is just too little to understand much or notice).  We told her a watered down version of what the doctor was going to do and why and that when I came home I would have a bandage over my owie and we would have to be careful for awhile.

Bag packed, band-aids ready.

On the morning of my surgery, B and I were getting ready, and I got MadHatter ready for school as we were going to drop her off on our way to check in.  I am heading upstairs, calling to MadHatter that we are going to be late if we don't leave now and she yells down "just a minute Mom.  We can't leave without the Band-Aids.  They don't have Hannah Montana band-aids at the hospital and you are going to need one so that when you come home, our owies match (she had one on each foot from her new shoes)".  She then proceeds to go through the box of Hannah Montana band-aids to find the ones that match the ones she has and gives them to me.  Of course they came with instructions to "make sure you give them to your doctor so he can put them on when he is done".  Oh, how I love this child!!!

We check in and are sent to a staging area where I have to change into my standard issue hospital gown.  Except this isn't so standard.  Instead of opening in the front, or the back, it opens down both sides.  Sounds great, right?  Nope.  You can use your hands to hold the seam closed in the front (or back)  - you don't have enough hands to hold it closed down both sides.  But I will give them points for the great Dopp kit and presentation of it all.

The surgery went well  and it was all pretty textbook (so I am told, I slept through it all).  My biggest problem was in the recovery room.  I came out of anesthesia to a nurse gently shaking my leg and asking if I was in any pain.  Funny enough, I wasn't in any until she shook me awake, but then I could rate it about an 8.  Now the hard part...She spoke only Spanish.  Me, on my best days, speak Spanglish.  After anesthesia, I speak gibberish.  This is where is got fun.  I spent the next 5 hours in recovery trying to not only wear of the fogginess that accompanies surgery, but also trying to think in Spanish to understand what my nurses were asking me.  Thank goodness I have done this before and there is a universal rating system for pain.  And thank goodness for the Morphine that had me slipping into sleep more often than I was awake to talk.  Finally that evening they wheeled me to my room and told me I could eat!  Funny, I know it had been 24 hours since I had eaten, but I still wasn't hungry.  Maybe the sight of food would awaken my appetite...

Maybe not.  This should be against the law.  This is every bland food you could ever think of all presented as a meal.  This isn't a meal - this is torture.  Applesauce, Jell-o, mashed potatoes, pea soup, and for the best part...wait for it....pureed chicken breast.  And when I say pureed, I mean, they took a chicken breast, threw it in a blender and then put it on my plate.  There was no water or milk added, no salt or pepper.  It was just as dry and bland as it looks.  Needless to say, I still wasn't hungry.  I got some of it down (not the chicken though) because I knew it was my only hope of ever going home.  And going home is what I wanted to do more than anything.  I slept - sort of.  Stopped taking my Morphine (they don't let you travel on Morphine), and got up and went to the bathroom a few times (they like that!  Shows that everything is working well).  When the Doctor came in and talked to me, I did my best impression of a very healthy, happy person who wanted to go home and he told me that as long as my calcium test came back normal - I would be in my bed that night.  And I was!!!  But before I left the hospital I had just one more thing I had to do...

A very swollen and sore neck, but pretty band-aid, right?

MadHatter was soooo happy that the Dr. had listened to her and used her band-aid!  She just knew that the "puffies and the red" would all go away soon since the butterfly was protecting me.  I'm sure that it has more to do with your love and kisses MadHatter, than the band-aid!!!  (and let's not forget Stinkerbell...she has hugged and kissed Mommy so many times since I got home!)