October 12: Two days after surgery

The anesthesia hasn't fully worn off yet. 
And the meds make me so loopy, I can't write a sentence without losing the thread. 

But I'm trying to get it down so I can remember. This is Friday:

**

Arriving at the hospital in the dark, being ushered through security. Waiting for a wheelchair ride to nuclear medicine -- but why? I don't need a wheelchair yet. 

Dye injected into my right underarm, so the surgeon can detect what's going on with my lymph nodes. The PET scan, a million times better than an MRI. So quiet. So gentle. 

Pre-op, a nurse named Nathan, some joking, comments about my glasses. 

Trying to start an IV on my left hand, giving up and starting on my right. I've never had that issue before. Even my veins are hiding. 

Dr. N comes in and draws with a sharpie around my breast, and writes the number 2 near my right lymph nodes. Dr. A comes in with his own Sharpie. At this point I'm used to people looking, touching, prodding. 

The anesthesiologist comes in. He's cute. Dr. S. I've told them about my issues with medication. Once I woke up during surgery and tried to pull out my trach tube. Another time, at the dentist, I had temporary paralysis. Dr. S tells me about a pain bloc, and I say yes, let's do it. 

Will is there, fielding texts. 

A nurse named Bianca writes my name on the white board. She writes: surgery 3 hours. Recovery 1-2 hours. Post-up 1-2 hours. Will says it will be longer, that I have a hard time waking up. Explains that I take anesthesia hard. 

Then it's go time. The gurney being pushed, Will kissing me goodbye as the doors part, a long hallway, three or four people in green scrubs, faces masked, waving me hello. Being transferred from the gurney to the skinny operating bed. Put your left elbow here. Put your right elbow here. The anesthesiologist is back. The ceiling is white tiles. Everyone is doing something, strapping me to something, measuring something. 

"I'll give you a little bit to calm you down," Dr. S. says, and even though I'm calm, I know this is it. The IV hooked up, something cold floods in, and I'm out. 

**
When I wake up, my mouth is dry and my eyelids are so heavy. I'm back where I was before the surgery, on my gurney, hooked to a dozen things. A blood pressure cuff tightens on my left arm and releases. 

I'm alive. 

They tell me I've been there for a long time, just sleeping. I ask for Will, and when I wake up again, he's there. 

More hours pass. I can't keep my eyes open, can't hang onto a thread of conversation. My mom is there. Kirsten and Krista are there. It's a different shift of nurses, and this new one isn't as pleasant. I eat ice chips. The nurse listens to my stomach: nothing. 

Will learns how to clean my drains, which are tubes dangling from my breasts. Or, what used to be my breasts. My new breasts, I guess, because Dr. A was able to put in the implants at the same time, which he'd said was unlikely. But everything is bound so tight, I feel flat as a board. 

A wheelchair to the bathroom. All my muscles feel weird. My legs can't hold me on their own. 

A wheelchair to the parking garage. Being helped into the passenger seat. Pillows over my chest to protect me from the seatbelt. I must fall asleep because we're home one minute later. It takes three people to help me into the house. Those two steps up are huge, how will we ever possibly do them? But then I'm in my recovery room, on the daybed, and it's so good to be there, such a relief. I'm years older than I was this morning.

Krista brings me bone broth and toast and a ginger ale oli pop. Kirsten makes me comfortable. Will manages the dogs, who have to be kept away. 

I sleep. I wake up, try to read a page, fall asleep. I wake up, try to eat something, fall asleep. I wake up, need the bathroom, fall asleep. I wake up, see that someone has delivered flowers, fall asleep. 

I wake up. 

I sleep.