Nil per os

I ended up with just one ProDisc and the other two bad discs fused. I'm very disappointed in this result, I really, really, wanted the three discs, but aside from this, I'm doing pretty darn good.

The first few days after surgery weren't so good. I was out of it and in a lot of pain, and then they gave me morphine even though I told them not to. The morning after the procedure I woke up to see my doctor standing next to me with, like, a seven thousand dollar suit a big smile and told him if he didn't want puke on his pants, he needed to step back. The whole side of the bed and me were soaked with puke. It was in my hair, everywhere. I heard Theresa say, "oh, why'd they give her morphine? She gets sick on that." Why indeed? I told the anesthesiologist and anyone would would listen that anasthesia and morhine make me vomit. How is it they don't share this information? Or remember it?

The days after that and leading up to yesterday were pretty much run of the mill post-op days: me out of it and getting ignored by nurses. I sometimes wonder why people with absolutely no compassion or aptitude for working with people go into health care.

Today was the first day I felt coherent in any way. I have some kind of condition or complication called "ileus" which occured as a result of my internal orgrans being moved all around during the surgery. The remedy for this is, of course, to pass gas. I've never had so many people so interested in my farts. Every doctor, nurse, intern and nurse's aide that's come by here since the surgery has asked (sometimes more than once) if I'm "passing any gas?"
They say that average person passes gas around 15-20 times a day. Talk about taking something for granted. I'm up to maybe four times a day and each time, it's a real event. I've been up walking around the floor here, getting my own ice chips, etc. in an attempt to get my sluggish bowels moving, but it's unfortunately a very slow progress.

Yesterday I had the singular indignity of having a tube inserted in my nose, down my throat and into my stomach to try to "decompress" my abdomen. So on top of everything else, I had to sit here watching blackish blood and greenish slime being pumped out of my guts through my nose. I actually asked , no demanded that this be done because my stomach was so distended my skin felt like it was going to snap, this is a very weird feeling. The nurses were saying they could have bounced a quarter off my belly. I was dosed up with drugs, fell asleep and pulled the tube out. Thank god they said they didn't want to put it back in. The canister with the yucky guts stuff in it is still hanging on a hook on the wall. I've had three sets of xrays, called "obstruction series" looking for what was in there. I overheard one of the doctors say it was a dilated loop, so apparently it is just several giant gas bubbles.

It's been seven days now that I haven't eaten. I'm allowed to chew/suck on ice chips but that's it. I've been fantasizing about what I want to eat when I 'm allowed, and it isn't even the elaborate steak or lobster dinner that most people might crave, I'm thinking about everyday little things like Triscuits, some raisins, maybe a handful of almonds, and hot cup of strong tea. Oh, yeah, pretty darn good.