You Can't Quilt with an IV Drip in Your Hand

Dr. Jane (gynaecological oncologist) and Dr. Suzanne (breast oncologist) put their heads together and decided that my remaining ovary should be taken out as a precaution. Having passed the great threshold of menopause a couple of years ago, I figured this was a pretty good idea - that ovary wasn't doing me any good and had, in fact, become trouble waiting to happen (esp. with the kind of sneaky "silent" breast cancer I've got). Dr. Jane figured she could get it via laparoscopy, so the surgery was scheduled for a Friday afternoon and away I went - expecting almost inconsequential incisions, only an overnight stay in hospital, and a speedy recovery period (like 2 weeks). I was pleased with all this, knowing that pesky ovary would be gone and it could all be done without impacting my mastectomy/reconstruction surgery dates.

It all sounded good on paper, anyway.

When I awoke in post-op I learned that they'd been unable to complete the planned ovary removal with a simple laparoscopy. They'd quickly discovered a nasty problem - adhesions (scar tissue) had made a twisted mess of my lower abdomen, looping around my digestive tract, basically a nasty, complex bowel-obstruction-in-the-making. The laparoscopy was scrapped and instead a much more involved operation was performed.

It was disappointing, of course, but I have to say that I felt pretty darned lucky. Had they not found this problem now, it would certainly have caused big trouble somewhere down the line.

So instead of an overnight stay, I was told to expect 5-7 days in hospital. I hadn't expected it, or prepared for it, but I DID have a smallish quilting project to work on (and a newly started crochet project), so I figured I'd at least be able to make good use of the time.

The first 36 hours or so, I had a self-administered morphine injector wired into one of the 3 IV taps attached to my left arm. Even in my drug-enduced euphoria I was aware that morphine and quilting would probably not make good bed-fellows, so I waited until I didn't need the heavy drugs anymore before trying anything.

Once the drug fog cleared, I pulled out the crochet project to see how that would go, figuring it would be easier to work on that the quilt would be. I made an attempt - but quickly realized that the IV in the back of my hand just wasn't "happy" if I tried to do much that required moving fingers a bit - that plus I kept bumping it - even with just crochet (which is easier to manipulate than a quilt).

I finally gave up.

The IV drips stayed in until the day before I was released. I was bummed - thinking about how I'd be returning in a few weeks time for the mastectomy, knowing in advance that I'd be unable to use my hands at all again. But, fortunately, I talked to one of the night nurses about my worries about that upcoming surgery. The nurse (a lovely woman whose name I don't now recall) sat down with me for about a half hour and explained in great detail what would happen in hospital after the mastectomy/reconstruction. I was THRILLED to learn that they take the IV drip out in about 24 hours after the surgery.

So there you are... come the next round of hospital-time, I have hope that I'll be able to quilt a little, or at least crochet.

YAY!