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jenniez-tv · 5 years

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HIPEC surgery (warning - photos of my abdomen after surgery will be shown)

The night before surgery I was on clear liquids only.. that was hard when all my family members kept talking about food and dessert.. the stomach growl was real. Haha. I spent the night playing mahjong with my family up until I had to pack and get ready to leave the house. An all nighter. Weeee. I really didn’t care to sleep since I don’t usually sleep til the morning anyways and I would be sleeping a lot in the hospital so it was whatever.

My aunt, mom, and I leave to go to the hospital around 4am (super early). We arrive, I’m sent to preop to get ready and I am super nervous.. I realized I forgot to take my anti anxiety Med before leaving the house.. UGH. I ask the nurse if she can ask the doc to give me one while I’m waiting and she said the Anesthesologist can give me something when they are ready to wheel me to the OR. Like wtf? How is that helpful? Why would I need anxiety meds right before I go to sleep for the freaking surgery?!? I need it for the 2hrs of waiting!!! She didn’t even bother to ask! Ughhhh.. like why? She is supposed to be an advocate for me.. Was not happy with her.. then she told me to relax.. HAHA. Glad I won’t see her again. Rude.

Me waiting at preop

Anywho.. next thing I know I’m awake in PACU. I’m groggy and in pain.. and of course felt myself up all over my abdomen to make sure I didn’t get a ileostomy bag. Thank god I did not! I did have a jp drain though. The Dr said he removed the organs he planned on-the uterus, ovaries, omentum, gallbladder along with 3 small things he found in my abdomen. I have no idea where and how big they were. They don’t think they are tumors but the pathology results have not come back yet.. feels like forever waiting for results.. either way, im glad it was found and removed. (Update- the results came back benign! Negative for cancer!)

I’m moved to the ICU and get hooked up to so much equipment. I stayed in the ICU for 2.5days. I had 2 iv’s, an arterial line, Foley catheter, NG tube, JP drain and a wound vac. My throat hurt so damn bad.. every time I swallowed it hurt.. that NG tube fked up my throat. I was also a not allowed eat or drink anything for 2 days until they took it out. I could not wait! Post op day 1 was a killer for me. Just trying to sit up made me cry. They wanted me to walk down the hall while pushing the wheelchair. I literally looked like a old person who has the hump back and couldnt stand straight while walking. The poor nurses were pretty much holding my weight lol. Even helping me scoot up on the bed hurt. My family said my entire body and face was super swollen . I just pictured the scene in Willy wonka and the chocolate factory where that girl turned into a huge blueberry. 🤭 I think the most annoying part of ICU was when they kept giving me blood pressure medication and IV fluids to increase my blood pressure. I normally have low BP like 80-90/50-60 told everyone. Apparently the Med surg unit (Unit I would be at until I get discharged) doesn’t like BP’S under 90. I mean seriously, I can’t be the only one with normal low BP’s.. With all the fluids during and after surgery.. I was 15lbs heavier. Ahh! I know it’s all water weight but damn that’s a lot of water weight. They also gave me potassium and it was so uncomfortable on my veins. Anyone can tell you it hurts..even when it’s diluted. It fked up my veins where on The last night in the ICU I had to get one of my IV’s replaced because anything that went through it (even saline) hurt . It was hurting even if nothing was running.

Anyways, I get cleared and transfer up to the medsurg unit. I was actually feeling pretty good considering just having surgery. I get my NG tube removed and am allowed teeny bits of water/ice. FINALLY. My throat can now get better! By the time I transferred I was making laps around the unit. I also get my wound vac removed. It was so painful because I developed a lot of blisters on the edges of the tape from the wound vac. It looked pretty gross. (Picture below). When they removed it, all the blisters broke and they even rubbed over it pulling the skin off. Then, one of my ivs stopped working so it had to be taken out. Luckily this unit only requires one IV not two like the ICU so I didn’t need it replaced.

Picture of the blisters

Picture of my incision with the wound vac and the jp drain.

Picture of my incision and blisters after wound vac removed

The next morning is where everything went downhill. I got super nauseous and eventually threw up 900cc of bile. My temp was around 101 degrees, and eventually got up to 103. I also had other signs/symptoms that showed that I got septic to something. I had to be transferred back to the ICU. Because they were not 100% sure where the infection came from (they had 2 guesses) I got 2 antibiotics that would treat both areas. My white blood cell count also dropped dramatically to 0.98 and my anc 0.74. This means that I was very susceptible to getting more infections. People had to wear a mask when they come to my room and I had to wear one when I left the room. The good news is my fever went away pretty quickly and I started feeling better. My wbc kept going up and down... I’m hoping it keeps trending up because I cannot leave the hospital until my wbc goes up and becomes stable. EEP.

While I was back in the ICU I had to get a second iv placed.. so now I have had 4 iv’s so far not including the arterial line). I’m connected to all the machines again and it takes forever for me to get to the bathroom since they have to disconnect all the monitors and attach it to a portable one so they made me use a bedside commode instead. Bedside commode?!?! The thought is just gross. I’m peeing and pooping in a room with just a curtain blocking the view. What if someone walked in to talk to me in the middle of my session? It was so nerve wrecking. I’ve cleaned up patients bedside commodes before and it’s fine but now can say that I really understand why patients apologized all the time.

After another 2 days in the icu and being septic.. And another iv needing to be replaced bc it infiltrated.. (apparently my veins are mad weak from all the meds and chemo) (now iv #5) I am finally better to go back to the Med surg unit. I’m transferred back and it feels so nice to use abnormal bathroom again. I’m still only allowed clear fluid and honestly.. even that was hard to do. I had to drink a minimum of 800cc a day and it was a struggle. So many days of not eating and drinking screwed me up. Plus I kept having this underlying nausea that just wouldn’t go away. It turned out I had a small ileus as well- A complication that can happen from abdominal surgery.

Everyday I got blood drawn twice a day.. and lovenox which is a blood thinner to prevent blood clots. Prior to lovenox, they were giving me heparin (which is 3 times a day..). My body was full of bruises all over.

Picture of some of the bruises on my arms. I had a bunch on my thighs too..

Anywho, I’m finally allowed to eat.. and man that was more of a struggle than drinking.. I would take one or two bites and be done.. it didn’t help that the hospital food was completely disgusting.. even simple foods you think they can’t mess up on.. was just gross. I was asked by family what I felt like eating so they can bring it.. but honestly I had no appetite at all. Completely different from when I was on steroids and eating nonstop.. lol. But I tried.. hard.. to eat and drink enough. They wanted to start me on tpn which is the total nutrition through a central line.. and I was not about to have it. I gave a hard hell no.

I could barely sleep.. it just felt like my stomach was being pulled or stretched apart when I moved.. was woken up non stop for meds/ vitals.. when I was able to doze off.. my days pretty much consisted of eating, taking a couple laps around the unit, napping, and repeat. I was still getting some iv fluids to help keep me hydrated.. and of course.. another iv infiltrates.. and another iv had to get started... I had a total of 6iv’s and an arterial line.. it was utterly ridiculous.. I had no more places for ivs! And I freaking hate ivs and getting poked.. but that’s all I got during this stay.. so many I lost count.. sigh..

On and off during my stay but especially the last couple of days, I had severe lower right abdomenal pain that was sharp and jabby. I prevented me from moving at all.. it was downright horrible and worse than my incision.. no one knew what it was from but I guessed maybe the drain that was inside.. I got a ct scan done and it didn’t show anything there but the drain so I got it removed.. the pain immediately disappeared!! It was such a relief!! No pain meds helped at all.. not even the slightest.. so having that relief felt so good. The drain coming out though.. felt like so much pressure and it felt like the spot that hurt was getting pulled on. I swear that drain was stuck there or something.. it was a good amount in my stomach.. I didn’t realize how much of the drain just sat in there.. kinda gross. And yes, I watched the whole thing... hahah.

Another complication I have is that my left upper thigh is numb.. and has been numb.. it never got and still hasn’t gotten any better.. I thought it was the duramorph I got during surgery but after a week it seemed unlikely.. the dr says that it’s most likely because the retractor they used to hold my abdomen opened was pressed on my thigh nerve since I’m smaller than the average patient and dmged it from it being compressed for 8hrs.. he says it will take weeks to months for my leg to return to normal.. hopefully.. but that there is a chance it won’t.. god I hope it comes back. It feels so weird and annoying to have the top of my thigh permanently numb ...

Finally my wbc is stable and continuing to trend upward (although still low) and I’m allowed to go home.. I could not wait to see my babies (my dogs), my family, and just sleep in my own bed!!

Sorry, I know this post was all over the place... i wrote parts of it at different times.. which is why some seems present and some past tense.. and I’m honestly not in the mood to go and fix it all. I will post again how my recovery is going at home soon.

Thank you all for your love and support. ❤️

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jess-oh · 6 years

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Thoughts from the sky 12/18/17

There are two people sitting behind me and I’m really glad that they’re getting along so well but they’ve been talking nonstop since the beginning of this flight and honestly, it sucks! I also don’t know how I actually fell asleep earlier with them talking? The guy isn’t too bad but the lady directly behind me has no gauge for how loud she actually is and it’s crazy.

Anyway, I haven’t actually written in a while. I got really busy and I just didn’t bother ever getting back into it. But I do want to recommit to this. Honestly, I’m really nervous about coming back home. I love my family and I love Jeanne, Lauren, Jude, Cat, Keylee, and Edgar and I’m really excited to see them again. They’ve been there for me through thick and thin and they means the world to me. But Jeanne and Lauren aren’t very involved at Sa-Rang. And I don’t know where God is rn in my UBMS crew’s lives. It’s just hard. Because even though I love them so much, it isn’t enough. They can’t always be there for me and I don’t want to force them into that either.

For Sa-Rang, I tend to hangout with the same people. I probably the closest to Judy and Jennifer of those who are actually involved. But they’ve got their own peeps too and I don’t want to burden them. We don’t actually talk that often throughout the year. Grace An, too. In fact, Grace An actually does care about me. I feel like Jen and Judy are just pitying me. And whether or not that’s true, it’s how I feel and it sucks.

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I’m supposed to land in LA around 8:44pm PST. It’s currently 7:53pm CST. I wish I had less than an hour left but it’s more like 2.5 hours left. I gotta find some more ways to kill time. The people behind me stopped talking but a baby in front of me started crying. WE’LL SEE

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I really crave affection and acceptance from others and I don’t think that’s weird. I think I love Lauren and Jeanne so much bc they’re actually so invested in my life and care about what I’m going through and that’s so hard to find other times. I try to talk to Andrew but sometimes it just feels like he’s trying to get rid of me instead of actually listening to me. I tried to vent the other day but he just kept saying, “You’re too hard on yourself,” and leaving it at that. Okay, well, what does that mean???

It’s really nice going through my old things. I just looked at some old yearbook spreads that I forgot I saved and some good memories came back to me. Prior to this, I was feeling discouraged by my transcripts. It’s definitely something that I feel a lot of shame for. And it’s a part that I want to stay buried in the past. I wasn’t a very good student in high school and I failed at least one or two classes a year and I never felt good enough for my family and it sucked. But looking at my old spreads, it reminded me of the good times I had in yearbook too. I remembered some particular moments when I saw the “Camp Sophs’mores” spread. I remembered how Andrew was in charge of the doing the title and tried to put my face in the “O” and how I felt so embarrassed and insisted that he change it! I remember how relieved I felt when he actually spelled the title wrong and had to change everything. I remember how I recently cut my hair at the time and how short it was. I remembered how Anthony tricked me into getting into the photo bar. I remembered how that photo of me was the bane of my existence. I remember how overdramatic I acted but how much fun it was to just be with everyone. I miss that time a lot. I remember how I confided in Anthony that I loved yearbook so much because I felt like I could just feel free to be my weird self and it didn’t matter because everyone else was just as weird or weirder than me. And I remember how he laughed and said that Tim was just the same. I remember how afraid I became of Tim. I remember how deathly afraid I became of him because he came to symbolize yearbook for me. And all the bad parts about it. He became the face of yearbook in my mind. And whenever I saw him, I remembered how desperate I felt, how shitty I felt all the time, how I never felt good enough, how I felt the need to self harm myself, how I felt trapped and depressed and suicidal. How suicide doesn’t mean pulling the trigger on a gun. It means not getting out of the way when there was a chance of your life ending. It meant hoping that something bad would happen to you. It meant, for me, that I was so tired of living and just wanted to die. I wanted to just stop existing because it was too tiring and too hard to continue living. I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to get back in control and for me, that was dying and giving up. It was ending it all and escaping the pain of it all.

Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time with church. Because it was a place where I felt like I had to put on a pretty face and pretend that everything was okay when it wasn’t. I could always say that I could’ve tried harder than I did. But the bottom line is I didn’t. I didn’t trust them. And it wasn’t just because it was them. It was because I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone. I felt so alone. When people meet me, I always wonder what they think of me. Especially recently, I bet they thought I grew up in a super supportive community with loving parents and a place to just grow and thrive. And I really wish that I did. I wish I had that picture perfect family growing up. But I didn’t. And if only they knew… man. If only I could show them how miserable I felt. Every. Single. Day. How much I wanted to die and just escape it all. How much I felt like screaming but no sound would come out of my throat. How much I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs but knew that I couldn’t. How much I wanted to go to therapy and seek help but couldn’t because I was afraid of how my family would judge me. I was so ruled by my fear and felt trapped and like I couldn’t escape my situation. And that’s when I started self harming. Because I felt so out of options. And I needed to feel like I was still alive. Like I was still human. So I started cutting into my skin. Deeper. And Deeper. And deeper still. And it was all because I just felt so desperate and out of options.

It’s easy to put down things and people that you don’t understand. And I don’t know if anyone else was depressed but I think I was the most evidently so. I felt like I was carrying the world’s weight on my back, constantly. And maybe everyone else grew up in a good community with loving friends and parents that stood by their side through thick and thin. And I didn’t have that. I had people that was constantly judging me. I had people that didn’t understand my depression. That stabbed me in the back. That used me to get ahead and left me behind once they were done with me. And it hurt. And it sucked. But I got up. Each time, I got up. And I tried again. And I tried even harder. And I kept going. And now I’m here.

I think Jason really does care about me. And it does make me feel kind of bad thinking about him. I want the best for him and I don’t want him ever feel depressed or bad about himself. I think I’m just constantly reminded of when we were up in Evanston and I literally could have died. But I didn’t. Because he grabbed my shirt and pulled me back. He totally could’ve just let me go but he didn’t. He saw a car coming when I didn’t. And made the executive decision to go after me. He pulled me back and prevented me from dying. And proceeded to scold me a lot after that, haha. He told me to be more careful and I tried to just shrug it off but honestly, I didn’t really feel like I was in my own skin that day. And maybe a part of me did want to die. Maybe a part of me did want to get hit and just be done with it all and no longer uncomfortable. But the worry and concern in his voice and eyes made all the difference. I was in a state of shock. But it made me feel like I mattered. And just thinking about how he would react if he found out that I had been self harming again…it makes me feel really good about myself. Like my life is worth saving. He would actually be worried about me and my life. He would actually take the time to stop what he was doing and see if I was okay. I was really upset at the start of this week for a lot of different reasons. And even though he couldn’t tell that I was trying to push him away, he still just wanted to let me know that he was here for me and that I wasn’t alone. He could see me. And I wanted to be defensive and say that I wasn’t depressed but really? Am I really not depressed in the least? Really??? Anyway, I decided to just accept it and move on. I neither confirmed nor denied my depression but I was also a little surprised by that conclusion.

I just read through some posts in the white elephant/potluck event and I am excited. I am. And I’m also over James. I think it was something that I struggled with for a long time but I really forgot about him this year. I barely ever brought him up in conversation and when I did, it felt awkward. So goodbye, James. You caused me a lot of pain but I’m over it now. I’m over it.

I’m over it.

I’m supposed to meet with P. Josh when I come back to Chicago and I’m actually pretty nervous about it? I think I’m afraid that I’ll get triggered by a memory from high school and start spontaneously crying and I really don’t want to. I want him to trust him and see me for me as I am now. I remember sometimes from high school when I was just suddenly start crying for what seemed like no reason at all. I would literally just have overactive tear glands and I would have a stream of water come down my face. And I would try and reassure my current company that it was fine and that I was fine and honestly wasn’t sure why I was crying so much. And I’m afraid that that’s going to happen when I talk to Josh. We’ll be in mid conversation and I’ll just suddenly start crying. And he’ll ask if I’m okay and I’ll try and reassure him that I’m fine when I’m not and just keep lying to myself that everything is okay when it isn’t and I don’t want to present that image to him. I want him to believe that I’m okay and that there’s nothing wrong with me. But there will be. Man. I think I need to pray about serving again. Because I have gotten a lot better at being open about my faith in public. I’ve worn my church gear out in public whether I was going on errands or just going to class. I’ve been a lot more comfortable with just discussing the topic of religion in a much more comfortable way in public and in fact, I felt empowered by it. So I’ve been doing a lot better recently but I know that I still feel so much fear in my heart sometimes and it’s scary and it sucks sometimes. And I don’t want to drag people down with me. I want to lead people and show them to rightfully rely on God during times of trouble and hardship instead of themselves. And rn, I tend to try and bear the burden of the world on my own shoulders to avoid the guilt of relying too much on others and being too dependent on them. And I do think that I’m really afraid that that will happen again. That I’ll be too dependent on others instead of trying to figure things out for myself. And no one deserves to feel trapped in that situation. I think that’s the position I’m in with my sister right now. But yeah, I want people to know that they can rely on God in all situations and places and even though I can’t emotionally always be there for everyone right now, I want to get to that place and just really compassionately love upon my fellow brothers and sisters. Freshmen and upperclassmen alike. But I’m not there yet and I want to get there. But first, I think I need to come to terms with my own issues and accept that I need to learn to rely on God more because I’m not there yet. I need to accept this for myself before I can start preaching to the choir.

#reflection #thoughts from the sky

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