OK - so today marks one week since the original surgery...and...you guessed it...no poop! The entire nursing staff is on "poop watch". Every morning they ask...did you poop? And when I tell them no, they frown and shake their heads. This morning after the same routine, they went and got Martha who is one of the head nurses. She says..."you have not pooped yet?"...to which I reply "no, nothing, nada, zilch...I promise, if I have a bowel movement this whole house is going to know about it!!! She laughed, but then said the words that made my blood run cold. "If you haven't pooped by this time tomorrow, I am going to have to administer an enema". Now, I am a grown woman...I have had two children and nursed my husband until he died. I am strong, I am fearless...but I DO NOT want an enema. I don't know what it is...but there is something completely demoralizing about an enema! I have been taking stool softeners since the day of surgery - religiously - but still nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean absolutely nothing...no urge...no feeling of movement...nothing. I decide to double up on my stool softeners for today in the hopes that somehow a miracle will happen before the clock runs out and I have to bend over (sorry for the bad visual).
It was a beautiful day today and Dawn and I had lunch out on the patio. I lamented over my potential enema and she laughed and said maybe a miracle would happen. I found out that she also has a doctors appointment this afternoon and so we will be riding together. We agreed that we will ask Lety to stop somewhere on the way back so we can buy ourselves a treat. I am also out of pain meds and so want to ask the doctor if I can get a few more. I don't think I will need them for long, but don't want to be without, just in case.
Got to the doctors office and Dawn went first. She is going home tomorrow, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that the doc will pull her drain. She only has one (the lucky dog) while I have two! She came out after about 20 minutes and told me that Mr. Drain will be traveling back to Canada with her. Bummer!! Then it was my turn. I went in and the doctor immediately said that I had the color back in my face and I looked so much better. Yay! That is a good start. I took off my clothes and the compression garment and he checked over all my incisions. He was pretty happy. The 4 inch area that had been reopened was (as expected) not as healed as the rest of the area. He put new dressings on it and said we just have to be patient while it heals. He also told me that my compression garment is no longer tight enough. He and his nurse made a padding to go inside the garment to make it tighter again. He said that if I want to continue to wear this garment, I will need to buy some "lipo foam" to pack inside it to make it tighter. (I went back to my room and ordered some from Amazon). When he and the nurse helped me put my garment back on I was shocked at how much tighter it felt with the padding in place. He said that he would see me again before I go home and that he will continue to receive daily updates from the nurses. He also told me that I could buy my pain meds (Ketorolac) over the counter in Mexico.
After we were finished, Dawn and I asked Lety to take us somewhere to buy a treat. I also asked her if we could stop at a pharmacy because I needed to get some pain meds. She asked what I wanted to get and I told her. She said she knew the best place so off we went. We were able to get our treats there as well. Dawn got a chocolate bar and I got a little package of shortbread cookies. We were both thrilled. Then I went to buy my meds and I got a bottle of 50! I was trying to calculate the price in my head from Pesos to Dollars, but Lety hands the guy some kind of loyalty card and suddenly the price drops by half! When it calculates to dollars, I end up paying about $9.50 for 50 painkillers! When we got back to the house I went online and looked up the drug. You can't get it in the states without a prescription, so I guess that's why I have never heard of it. Dawn and I spent a few more minutes chatting before she went to her room to pack. So sad to see her go. I will be the only patient in the house for 3 days until the next one arrives late on Monday for a Tuesday surgery.
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