Home Sweet Home

There was a steady stream of doctors and nurses overnight last night, all checking on Annie to help ensure she’d be physically ready to go home today. Yesterday, it seemed, was all about guessing…er, experimenting with various drug combinations to get that right mix of pain meds accompanying a Minimum Level of Vomitus (apparently the FDA just issued guidelines this past week).

We seemed to have the regimen settled until we chatted with this morning’s nurse and reported that a combo of Dilaudid and Valium worked well enough. What she didn’t check in the records was that the combo with Dilaudid was a half-dose. So she confidently administered the full-dosage pills to the patient.

Hungry for breakfast, Annie ordered a PB&J sandwich from room service. (Don’t snicker…I know you’ve done it too.) 93 seconds later, as if on cue, her head promptly slumped over to the other side of her pillow, and she was out cold. Attempts to revive her for more than a few seconds were unsuccessful, so her poor, languishing PB&J sandwich, created at room temperature, remained at room temperature the entire time. I don’t know how she choked it down, personally.

This was all about three hours later than the Miss Eager Beaver nurse wanted Annie’s ass out of the hospital room, given she had discharge orders, but it’s hard to discharge a mostly unconscious patient. Two hours after her meal she was finally able to go for a short walk, nap on my shoulder for a few minutes, and walk back to the room before gingerly changing into civilian clothes for ride home.

Living in smooth-streeted, pothole-free Beverly Hills never really seemed like a sensible idea until today during the ride home. You usually don’t think about bumps in the road because they’re always there. But when you’ve just had a mastectomy, you feel every little hole, divot, bump, smack, whack, jostle, and jolt in the road. Combine that with curves…any curves, and you have the makings of a motion-sick inducing puke-fest. Uh…welcome home?!?

But her afternoon had better plans, and after relaxing a bit, she ate all her dinner (thanks, Julie) and dessert, and has begun her in-bed marathon DVR recordings viewing. She also spent a few minutes on Facebook, and I’ll just now qualify any of her online comments with a simple reminder…she’s intimately familiar with narcotics at the moment. Be gentle.

Callie the cat’s a constant (yet largely silent) cheering section and is spending most of her time at Annie’s feet. So all is much better. The pain’s still significant and will be for some weeks, but it’s slowly subsiding. While the nausea’s ever-present, it isn’t nearly as bad as it was earlier. So there’s signs of light at the end of this particular tunnel. We’re all very glad to have her home, and for all the love notes, flowers, meals, goodie bags, and such. She and I are both incredibly heartened by everyone’s incredible generosity.