Hopefully this post doesn't become disorganized, but I'm going to do one post about my stay at Vanderbilt after our surgery. First, every nurse that I had during my stay was amazing. I honestly can't imagine having been taken care of better than what I was and I'm extremely grateful. Second, I'm so thankful for Dr. Bennett, Dr. Carroll, and Dr. Wellons. Finally, thank you to my family, especially Matt. He sacrificed so much during my hospital stay and other than going home to take care of the fur babies, he stayed by my side.
The day after surgery I was moved from labor and delivery to a maternal triage room. Maternal triage is basically the ER for pregnant women. The nurse explained that it was a quieter area and didn't require visitors to have a wrist band before being able to see me. One of the cool features of the room was that we were able to watch LifeFlight come and go from our window. Matt likes to take pictures of aircraft, so he was happy and took several great pictures during our stay.
Either recovery from surgery wasn't that bad or I have a much higher pain tolerance that I thought. I didn't experience too much pain until day 4 going into day 5 when I started having gas pains. I knew that gas pains weren't any fun, but I must say that they were the worst pains that I've had thus far in my life. At one point there was nothing that I could do to get comfortable. I wasn't able to stand, sit, lay down, or walk. I was in so much pain and so uncomfortable that even the pain medicine that I was given wasn't helping. Luckily my nurses were great and tried to help in any way that they could. I tried hot lemon water - fail, I tried mint tea - fail, I even drank prune juice with Miralax in it - fail. Nothing worked and ultimately it just had to work it's course, it's very slow and painful course. However, even with all that, I would still have the surgery again if it meant that my son would be given better possibilities in regards to not needing a shunt and having more mobility.
My family sent me some beautiful flowers and it was so nice having them in the room. I loved having all the visitors that I did. It's amazing how lonely it can be when you are away from everyone. I wasn't left alone for very long, but when I was, I missed having someone to talk to and to lean on if I needed it. I was so thankful to see either Dr. Bennett or Dr. Carroll on a daily basis. I was able to ask them any questions that I had and they reassured me that everything was going well.
While my stay was a great experience, it was so nice to be able to finally go home. There's no place like home and nothing better than your own bed! I'll be on bed rest until 37 weeks, so I have 13 more weeks to go. Jackson needs to hang tight and I'm going to do my best to make sure that that happens. :)
Crystal
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