Healing up Great!

(***There might be many typos in this post as I do not have my glasses on at the moment. My scar is right above my left ear, so wearing glasses hurts sometimes.)

Hi guys! As you all know, I have been MIA from blogging due to my recent craniotomy. I am pleased to inform you all that I am healing quite nicely and am the happiest and most energetic that I have ever been in my life!

I am also experiencing improved mental and physical functioning as well. For ease, I’ve grouped the events that has happened recently.

The morning of the surgery:

After checking out of our hotel, my mother-in-law, Long and I headed over to the hospital and arrived there 15 minutes before 6 AM. Upon signing in at Admitting, we were directed to go to my pre-op room. There I got dressed in the hospital gown, had the nurse to prep my head for surgery and insert the IV into the back of my right hand and waited for more family members to come. Once 7:30 AM hit, I was taken to another room where more craniotomy patients were waiting. There I met my family members a couple at a time and we took pictures, videos and laughed a little before the surgery. Everyone looked super worried, but for some reason, I was not. I kept cracking jokes and making funny faces. It seemed to set everyone at ease. At 8:30 AM I said bye to my family and was taken to the surgery room. The room I remembered was full of medical staff in scrubs multiple machines that looked so foreign to me. I got a little nervous here, but just a little. I must have been given anesthesia the moment I was in because that was all that I remember from the surgery room…

When I woke up from surgery:

The first thing that I noticed was that I was in a room (ICU) with multiple patients and nurses running around. I tried to sit up, but did not have the energy to bring myself up. My lips were cracked and my throat was coarse due to the dehydration. I was extremely thirsty. I then just started calling, “Nurse” as loud as I could, which was not very loud at all. Once my nurse realized I was awake, the only word I could muster was, “water.” Due to medical reasons, she brought me ice instead and fed it to me slowly. I was a happy with anything at that moment. I stayed in ICU for about 2 hours before I saw my family members…

I saw my family faintly (no glasses) in the distance, as the nurses were pushing me out of the patient elevator. I think I waved…or maybe not….By this time I was fully awake and slowly being rehydrated. I sat up a little, but quickly went back down. I needed to conserve my energy. Later I found out that the whole surgery took 6 hours. The tumor was so that thick and strong, about the size of my fist, that it took 2 more hours than expected.

The wonderful news is that my neurosurgeon was able to get it all out. I have to check back with him in 6 weeks to make sure that it does not reappear. If it does come back, I’ll have to go into some sort of targeted radiation therapy. I am a little scared because radiation can kill brain cells. So far, I’ve maintained all of my brain cells in great condition regardless of the presence of a tumor all of these years. I’d like to keep it that way…..

When I was placed in another room, with other patients, my family came in to greet me. At this point, all that I remember was that I TALKED A MILE A MINUTE. I talked so much that I began to worry everyone. I just remember feeling happy. Every one I met, I greeted with a smile and multiple sentences. It was as if the surgery didn’t even happen as I did not feel any pain or discomfort. Looking back at the pictures, I laugh because I looked so drugged up and exhausted that I couldn’t have imagined myself speaking so much.

The first night at the hospital was horrible. As I couldn’t stop talking, I was not able to sleep well. I got little bouts of sleep here and there, but not so much to help me recover. Long was getting more and more worried, but I assured him that I was fine by talking more. haha. Even my first nurse carried a worried look on her face. She came to check up on me quite a bit and I told her many things as well. I think I even told her a story at one point. I am a super light sleeper. The slightest noise wakes me up. I finally solved my sleeping issue later when I requested hand towels to cover my eyes. I just needed to shade my eyes from the light to sleep.

By the next day I was able to sleep fully, but the talking still persisted. It got so bad that I was told to just be quiet. haha. Looking back it was pretty funny.

Eventually I was moved into my own private room and spent a total of 2 and a half days in the hospital.

Saturday was my first day home. It was a bit uncomfortable to sleep without a reclining bed, but I managed okay with multiple pillows. By the second day my face and head was so swollen that my left and right eyes were swollen at one point. In addition to more sleeping issues at home, I had a tough time bathing as I was not to get the wound wet. I also had the worst nightmares from the medication I was taking. Long called the advice nurse and I was taken off the meds and the nightmares went away in a couple of days.

I’ll have to write another post about my first week home later as I am pretty tired at the moment. In brief, so far, my days have just been sleep wake up, eat, walk a bit, sleep, wake up….you get the idea…

Yesterday, I took a picture of myself fresh out of the shower (which is very difficult to do with a huge scar on my head). Most of the dried blood is almost all gone and it is feeling less uncomfortable with each passing day. The bumps are healing and are smoothing out. My hair is growing so fast that it is beginning to tilt to the side a bit. The left side of my face is still a bit swollen and my chewing muscle (that was also cut) is finally healing up enough that I can begin to open my mouth fully and chew a bit on the left. The best part is that I can finally sleep at night in more than two positions.

Here is one with a closer look at my scar.

There are more pictures and videos of my stay at the hospital, but I can’t work up the courage to post them on the internet. I hope you all understand.

Thanks for sticking by me through this whole process!!