I awoke as they wheeled me into the recovery room and the minute I checked the time and saw my Dr, I started crying again! He was like "It's okay, all the girls cry when they see me!" haha Thank goodness for a sense of humor! Because I was so numb, my pain level was around a 4 so an hour later they wheeled me to my room. My doctor had also injected a numbing shot that lasts for about 30 hours. I don't remember a lot after that but I did have some visitors so that was nice. Going to the bathroom was a chore because I had to unhook my BP cuff, my leg circulation thingys, remove the ice packs under my arms then roll out of bed. My mom was an awesome nurse though and was so patient with me. I was on a liquid diet that whole first day and beef broth was my best friend. We didn't do a very good job of communication about pain meds though, because it took us until Friday AM to get on a real schedule. After that was established, I took a percocet every 4 hours, dilaudid via IV after that, a soma muscle relaxer every 4 hours and a stool softener every 12 hours. I didn't take but 2 anti nausea pills and then I finally told them I didn't want them because I wasn't nauseous at all! That was a huge blessing because I know a lot of people get very nauseous from the anesthesia. The rest of Thursday was kind of a blur. We watched a big rain/thunderstorm from my hospital window and fell right to sleep. Only waking up every 2 hours when the nurse came in to check my vitals.
The best I can describe how I felt is that it felt like a big brick/cinder block was sitting on my chest making it very hard to take deep breaths. They gave me a breathing machine thing that I have to suck on to help keep my lungs clear so I don't get pnuemonia. I didn't do so well, only getting up to the 500 or 750 mark but it's a start.
Some of my friends came and I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers, some chocolate bars, some super soft PJ's and Tiff's Treats cookies! I was up and moving by the end of the day so that, I consider a success!