kenny|1317953352|3035020 said:Thanks for all the good wishes.
I'm overwhelmed by the response.
I just got home.
Like Dorothy says, "There's no place like home."
What an ordeal.
Besides pain of a fresh tender wound that goes from your navel to your whowho ... there is the crippling constipation.
General anesthesia and the opiates in the days following major surgery days shuts down your intestines.
You do keep eating but with nothing coming out your gut inflates like a hot air balloon and it's is pure agony, worse than the wound pain. (I had never experienced constipation before since I have a very healthy diet.)
After day 2 or 3 they try to wean you off off the strongest pain killers (opiates) so you can hopefully begin the several-day process of relieving some of that pressure as your gut returns to producing its former output.
When it starts it starts with a sudden explosion, and it ain't pretty or cute.
You stand no chance of making it to the toilet in time since you have to unplug your IV from the wall and carry it with you
You can't get out of bed quickly because of the pain.
The abdomen carries a lot of mechanical load when the body moves having the muscles there cut and stitched is most unfortunate.
Oh and good luck trying to get those hospital gowns off quickly with the IV in the way.
Kenny, after my c-section I was on opiates for a few days... To be blunt- I didn't poop for four days and it was all plugged up. Not to mention that I couldn't "push" or "bear down" AT ALL due to the slice in my belly. I took stool softeners to no avail. One word for you- SUPPOSITORY!!! It's gross and not fun to do, but I swear it was a god send when I was sitting in the bathroom crying and trying to poop for HOURS. Sorry for the grossness of this convo, but I totally feel your pain. I hope that gets better quick!
MissGotRocks|1318034794|3035674 said:As for the compassion, we are ever evolving creatures. Sometimes these experiences are put in our path to help us grow as people. Until you've seen it first hand, it's sometimes hard to believe that pain and circumstances can bring people to their knees with seemingly no place to go with it. I hope that the lady - either through medication or healing - has better days to come. It is quite a humbling experience to witness and for all of us, a little scary. We can never be sure how or where we'll end up and the fear of being like that is quite mind blowing. However, I'm sure in that situation, we'd prefer compassion to scorn.