I apologize to my fellow readers in advance. I am HEAVILY medicated right now (and probably will be for the next few weeks) and sometime looking down for too long makes me ligth headed - so if there are tons of spelling errors or weird gaps it’s probably because of that. haha.

Today is my first day home from the hospital. Surgery went fantastic. My surgeon (now named best surgeon ever..) was able to perform the thoroscopy which means NO CRACKED RIBS!! whoo hooo! And to make my surery even better it only took 2 hours! The reason being was because it turned out that my super amazing cyst was not attached to anything. So instead of having to chip away at it, he was able to drain it completely and then suck the entire deflated sack right nout! Amazing, right??!!

The end result is 4 incisions, some VERY bruised ribs, a lot of soreness from all the tubes and crap I had stuffed into me. Oh, and because they had to deflate my lungs, my lungs are really sore too.

Once I got out of the surgery I was immediately sent to the CVICU (cardiac v-something intensive care unit). I dont remember too much from this day because I was coming off of anesthesia.  I was given morphine, hydrocordine (sp?), and the most magical thing ever - the thoracic epideral.  For the first 12 hours I was pretty numb so can’’t complaine about the pain at this point. i had TONS of friends and family at the hospital and that was absolutely wonderful. I was so glad to see everyone’s happy faces. :) Okay, so at 9pm everyone had to get out of the ICU area and I was going to be sleeping. Although, from the sound of it, I think I slept a lot this day already, but I don’t really remember  it. Back to the first night in ICU...my anesthesia was wearing off pretty quickly and I was having some pretty bad pains. So my night nurse would bring me morphine, but apparenlty my body didn’t do well from this drug. I was in the worst pain I had ever had in my life. I basically laid in my bed parylized for hours crying as I tried to call the nurse. But it hurt so bad to move and breathe that I couldn’t even do that. So this went on every few hours until we finally realized that the combination of my durgs was not strong enough. The next morning the docs came back in and uped my meds and I immediately felt better. They said that I should be sore, but from a scale of 1-10, I shouldn’t be above a 5. So, after a brief moment of panic because they OVER medicated me (not eveing going to go into that scary story), we got the combination right.

The next few days were good. I was able to walk ever y hfew ours and di dmy arm and leg workouts in my bed. I also had to start doing this breathing workout that is the most painful thing ever. The gist is I have to inhale 10 breaths every hour. It’s exhausting. Which is hilarious considering I was able to run so much beforehand. Now, I walk to the freaking chair and run out of air.

After I moved into the normal room, things were pretty good. The next day was when they removed all the chest tubes and epidural and other IVs. That was good to, except that now I can feel liquid floating around my body and in my lungs. It’s kinda gross. Ugh, AND I actually gained 11 pounds in the hospital. It’s basically from all the extra fluid not draining and other crap, but man do I feel bloated. None of my baggy pajama pants or sports bras fit me. No wonder they make people wear those hideous hospital gowns.

It’s annoying but the brightside..........

I CAN BREATH! Holy crap people. How did I live like I did. The immediate impact of removing this dang cyst is incredible. That first day when I had no pains I was inhaling like a freak because it felt so great. It’s like deep breaths all the time. I guess this is how everone else in the world feels and probably don’t even notice it, but wow. I am in love with breathing. It feels fantastic. It’s like the air goes all the way through my chest cavity. I can’t believe that I feel the impact so soon, but if I feel this great now then I can’t wait for it to feel in a few months.

Okay, I wont bore you any more with the pain Im facing right now. I am going to be home for the next three weeks and then will get an update from the doc on my recovery.

Thanks again to everyone for the cards/emails/miles logged/prayers/and well wishes. It’s amazing how much better a person can feel just from the positive energy they get from others.