The Big C ~ Part 2

Dr. T's office wasted no time calling me and getting my surgery date set up. They wanted to schedule it sometime in January but when I asked about the recovery time they said 7 to 10 days. What!? I don't have time to be off 7 to 10 days. So, I requested to have it set up for the week before our school's Winter Break. This way I would only miss a few days that week and then I wouldn't miss any due to the fact that everybody would be off. Well... Dr. T only does surgeries on Tuesday's and Wednesday's and I would need to be there the day before surgery so they would be able to do my pre-op evaluation. So much for only missing a couple of days. I would only be at work 1 day.

Fast forward to a week before the surgery and Dr. T's office called and asked if they could bump up my surgery to that Tuesday instead of Wednesday because he would be out of town that Wednesday. Well, do I actually have a choice?? (Which is what I was thinking in a very sarcastic way) So long to being a work at all that week. I now had to be there for the pre-op appointment that Monday and surgery was Tuesday. The surgery was in Augusta, which means it was a 2 1/2 hour drive away. The surgery was an out patient surgery but for patients that live that far away Dr. T requests that they stay in a hotel overnight just in case anything goes wrong. My Mom and Frankie both wanted to be there for the surgery, which I probably would have made both of them come anyways, so they devised a plan that seemed to work out for everybody. My mom would drive me there Monday and do all the pre-op festivities with me and then drive me to the hospital for surgery the next day. Frankie would wake up early the day of the surgery and drive over to the hospital.

My mom picked me up around 8:00 Monday morning, February 10th. We stopped for breakfast and had a fun time on our road trip to Augusta. By this time I was super nervous so it helped that my mom didn't seemed worried about anything and she helped put me to ease. When we arrived in Augusta we went straight to the hospital to Dr. T's office for the pre-op appointment. That was loads of fun.  They didn't waste any time getting me back and the nurse came in and just plain as day like it happens every day (which to her I'm sure it does) says, "I'm going to spray this solution in your nose so when he comes in he can put the camera in and take a look at your vocal cords." Umm, excuse me, WHAT??? Where is he putting a camera? I have to be awake for this? This is something I should have known about so I could have prepared myself!! I was not very happy. So here she is putting this spray stuff up my nose and one nostril did fine, the other...well let's just say the spray and my nose had a disagreement and the spray went everywhere. I felt like I had spray down my shirt and on my pants. I was coughing and gagging and eventually got sick right there in the office. How disgusting, how embarrassing. The nurse was so apologetic and kept saying "I am so sorry, that has never happened before"... yeah yeah, blah blah blah  The nurse left and my mom kept saying yuck yuck yuck, you're gonna make me get sick (and I was thinking just join the club over here, I'm sorry that my actual throwing up is going to make you sick) I composed myself, Dr. T came in, put the spray in with no problem then stuck this little camera up my nose and down my throat to look at my vocal cords and I had to say "eeeeeeeee" a few times and then it was done. No problem at all. Dr. T was wonderful, he answered any and all questions that we had and said to call a number after 6 pm to see what time I had to be at the hospital the next day for surgery. We were set to go.

Once we left I texted Frankie to give him a peak into our morning.

Me: Things over here are off to a rough start:/ they just shot up some stuff up my nose and it came shooting back out, (which by the way, she claims has never happened before) I then proceeded to throw up my breakfast lol... I told mama that if this is any indication of the surgery tomorrow things aren't looking so good.

Frankie's response: Babe that's nasty

I couldn't help but laugh out loud with that one. Short and to the point. Gotta love him.

The rest of the day we spent eating and finding our hotel. There was also the looming Ice Storm headed our way that was just going to be the end of the Earth from the way the news anchors were describing it. Catastrophic, Devastating... ridiculous. Well, with the fact that we were no where near home and my sister was going to pop out baby number 3 at any time my mom was pretty stressed about what to do. We didn't even know what time my surgery was going to be and my sister was going to the doctor that day to see if they needed to go ahead and induce her. The hospital called me before 6:00 and said that I need to be at the hospital at 5:45 in the morning to get ready for surgery. Wait.....5:45.....in the morning?  Have you lost your mind?  The good news about that time was that my surgery was scheduled for 7:30 which means that I would get it out of the way.

We woke up, got to the hospital and they wasted no time getting me ready and into the operating room. Frankie was on his way and would be there when I woke up. And, he was. :) I was happy to see him and mama when I got back to my room. I was a little out of it but it didn't take me long to come to and get ready to go home, well to the hotel. Frankie and my mom had worked out a plan since Meggie was in fact going to be induced that day. My mom took me to get some lunch which consisted of a baked potato from Wendy's and Frankie went to get my medicine filled. Once I was all settled in back at the hotel my mom went ahead and left headed for Covington. It was raining and while it wasn't freezing just yet we didn't know when it would start so it was best for her to get on the road as soon as possible. Frankie stayed with me and we napped pretty much all day. We finally ventured out to Olive Garden (well, I stayed in the truck and Frankie picked up our order) I had soup and pasta and Frankie was able to have something really good too. I was actually surprised at how well I could eat the soft foods like pasta and soup. I just couldn't eat a lot of it. We had plenty of left overs which is a good thing because needless to say with the ice storm on the horizon we were definitely stuck there for an extra day. :( It actually wasn't that bad, I was able to get plenty of rest and we did venture out of the hotel room a couple of times just so we wouldn't go crazy. While we were waiting out the storm I got good news from the school - I was actually only missing 2 days because school was canceled due to the weather the other 3 days. We also got great news from Meggie and Terrell. Layton Thomas Selph was born Wednesday, February 13th.

Frankie was definitely going stir crazy by Wednesday night and was dead set on going home Thursday. Which is what we did. He, being the awesome hubby that he is, took me straight to Covington to meet Layton! :)

Here are some of the pictures from our stay (warning: my nodule that was removed is in fact a picture...)

 

Dr. T came in to check on me after surgery and showed me this picture, I said which part of that is the nodule, he said all of it. Wow, that is pretty big!

 

My bandage, they used a small band aid and glue to put me back together :) The purple there is from their markers where they drew on me before surgery.

 

My soup, it was really really good. I have never been a soup person at Olive Garden before but this is definitely one I will be getting again.

 

The mushy mess outside of our hotel.

 

I love this picture, even though the ice creates huge problems you can't deny how pretty it is.

 

Once we were on the interstate the roads were actually not bad, it was the exits and surface streets that were the worse.

 

 

The highlight of my trip. Getting to see Layton. We were the only ones who got to meet him in the hospital since all the ice and mess. :)

 

 

Part 3 coming soon.....