FINALLY!!!

I thought that this day would NEVER get here! Tonight at 12:01, I am going to see the first showing of Twilight! I am so excited, I can hardly contain myself. Carolyn, Melissa, and I are going to make a night of it (as much as my body can handle anyway), and do dinner, maybe a little shopping (I might have to rent a wheelchair!), and then the movie! I will let all you Twilight fans know how it is. :)

Catch-Up

I have tons of pictures that I haven't been posting lately since I have been out of commission. I will try to get them all on here now!

I am feeling pretty good, I think that it is just going to take a while to get back to normal. Hopefully, better than normal! My normal lately has been pain, and I am so ready to be feeling like my old self again. I got my hormone pellets put in yesterday (my 10th incision!), and I am really excited to see how good I feel with them. I had zero night sweats last night, and I slept all the way through the night, so that's a great start! This might be TMI, but oh well. Since I have been having so much pain for so long, poor Scott has not been having his "needs" fulfilled as much as he would like. I was nervous that after I recovered from the surgery, I would have no sex drive anymore, because that is part of menopause. Well, when they put in the pellets, they put in 2 estrogen and 1 testosterone. The testosterone helps with energy and, yes, sex drive. Scott was teasing me, telling me to have 2 testosterone pellets put in. I told the doctor yesterday that he had said that, and she said, "If I put 2 in, you won't ever let him leave the house!" She also said that once the pellets start absorbing, it might be very difficult for me to "abstain" for the 6 weeks that I am supposed to after my surgery. So funny.

We have had so much help this last week. Scott was able to take last week off work, and he was going to take this week off too, but our families have stepped in and are helping a ton. My dad, mom, Aunt Tina, and mother-in-law are all helping out this week so that Scott can go to work. We have such an awesome families!

Cuddling

Not feeling well, watching Baby Signing Times

Little gymnast

Tricky Marley!

Backyard soccer

Here, let me give you a ride!

Silly Heidi

He is a pro, unfortunately

This might be innapropriate, but have you ever seen tinier buns?

Handsome boy

Princess Marley



Here are the post-surgery pictures of my bruised, swollen, incision-riddled stomach:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/sajacobs1/cid__1115081635.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a383/sajacobs1/cid__1115081634.jpg

Ugh

I had to go back and re-read what I wrote in my last post, those morphine pumps will mess you up! At first I didn't even remember that I had posted from the hospital, and then I got on here and saw it. I was impressed that I could even spell and make sense! So obviously, I am home now. I came home earlier than I probably should have. It wasn't until the second day in the hospital that I realized that I had been put on the post-partum floor. I don't care how many kids you have, for someone who is 28 years old, has had a hysterectomy, and just had surgery to remove every other reproductive organ they have and be put into immediate menopause, the last thing you want is to hear adorable, precious newborn babies all day. I was livid. I was emotional from the intense pain, emotional from the physical loss I had just had, and my body was adjusting to having zero hormones. I asked my nurse why they had put me on that floor, and she told me that they didn't have any beds available on the med/surg floors, so I got put there. She also told me that several of the nurses and a couple of doctors who knew my situation were very upset about it as well, and had talked to the hospital administration about it. I was crying about it, and my nurse called my doctor, who gave her a verbal discharge order. It was probably the fastest hospital discharge in history.
I think that I am doing pretty good emotionally. I have started hormone replacement therapy, and that is helping. I am doing the patch right now, but I am going to be doing what they call balance hormone pellets. They make a little incision in your hip and put in 3 little hormone pellets. This is nice because you get an even disbursement of hormones every day instead of the surges you get on oral hormones. You also only have to do it every 3-6 months, so you don't have to worry about taking a pill every day. Man, things I never thought I would have to worry about at 28-years-old.
As I said in my last post, they had to make 5 incisions to get the robot in and get everything done. One is in my belly button, and they other 4 are just below my rib cage, 2 on each side. They look pretty gruesome. My whole torso is so swollen, it is crazy. I was so glad that they found all of the things that they did, because that explains why I have been having so much pain. I knew that they would find cysts on my ovaries, because I have had those since I was a teenager. We suspected endometriosis, but they were surprised at how much I had since they had removed the endometriosis that they found when they did my hysterectomy. It's pretty unusual to have that much endometriosis when you don't even have a uterus, so they asked for my permission to use the tissue they removed for research. With all of the surgeries and pregnancies I have had, it was no surprise at all to have found adhesions. What was a surprise was that my bladder was totally and completely adhered to my cervix. They also found something else that they couldn't identify, so they removed it and sent it to the lab. I am really optimistic that after I recover from this surgery, I will be feeling so good and normal again. Hallelujah!
Scott has been an absolute angel. He helps me out of bed, helps me get up from the couch, brings me my pain meds on time, he is just the sweetest husband ever. If I am in bed and I need something, I just send him a text message (he calls it his "slave bell"), and he brings it to me. And he is taking care of all 5 kids, driving Macey and Heidi to and from school, keeping up the house, and cooking. He is awesome and I am lucky to have him.
I will be back at school on December 2nd, so call and schedule your appointments for that week. If you haven't been in yet, you have to come in for your complimentary facial! Just call the school at 480-964-7546 to schedule an appointment with me.

Update On Me

Sorry for the rant, but I have to get this out. I must also warn you that I am on a morphine pump, so please don't hold me accountable for any nonsense I might type.

Ugh. I do not like hospitals. I don't understand why 101 people have to come in your room 27 times each in the middle of the night. It makes it so much harder to start feeling better when you aren't getting any sleep. And why do they make you get up and walk around at 4:00am? They seriously can't wait 3 or 4 more hours?

Okay, I'm done. My surgeon, Dr. Hibner, had warned me that there was a pretty good risk of tearing my intestines or some other abdominal organs because I had so many adhesions that were making everything stick together in there, and they were going to have to "peel" all the organs apart from each other (gross, I know). Luckily, Dr. Hibner is amazing and there were no major complications. The surgery was done with a robot. Dr. Hibner sat at a control table and "performed" my surgery while sitting several feet away from me. Pretty cool. I have 5 (yes, 5) new incisions on my abdomen. He found a bunch of adhesions, and my bladder was completely fused to my cervix. He also found several ovarian cysts and a good amount of endometriosis. He was able to clean all of that up, and then he removed my cervix and ovaries. The surgery took almost 4 hours! With robotic surgery they have you laying at an angle where you head is much lower than your feet, so my face is nice and swollen from laying like that for 4 hours.

Everything is going well except for the fact that my oxygen levels keep dropping. No one is really sure why, but I'm not short of breath or anything like that so I'm not worried. Before I can go home I have to be up and walking around, eating solid food, be off the morphine pump and on oral pain meds, and obviously keeping my oxygen levels up. Sounds like a lot of work, but I'm going to try really hard to get it all done so that I can go home. Thank you for all of the emails, phone calls, texts, and comments on Facebook! I will let everyone know when I am getting out of this stinkin' hospital.

Jake

I have had several people asking how Jake is doing, so here's an update. He is getting so big! He is the sweetest puppy ever, he doesn't realize how big he is and he still wants to sit on everyone's lap. He is 4 1/2 months now. Here are some pictures of my 6th beautiful baby.

Kids are so smart!

Something To Be Thankful For

It's almost Thanksgiving, and I have been thinking about the many things that I am thankful for. Today we received some news that made me realize just how many blessings I have and how thankful I am for my children. Heidi had her appointment at the pediatric cardiologist today to check her little heart defect. They did an echocardiogram (ultrasound of her heart), and they were able to give us the incredible news that the hole in Heidi's heart has closed! I started crying when they told us, I have been so nervous for this appointment. She still has an enlarged aorta, but it is not big enough to cause any problems as of now, so they will just keep their eye on it and see what it does. I said to Heidi, "I am so glad that the hole closed!" And she said, "It's because I talked to God." Wow. What an amazing little girl she is.
I also had my pre-op today (I was in the car all day long). My doctor and I decided that he will not only remove my cervix, but my ovaries as well. I don't want to go through anymore surgeries after this, so we figured as long as he was in there he would just do it all. I am excited to not have to deal with ovarian cysts every month, but I am not excited to be in immediate menopause. I am trying to decide if I am going to take hormone replacement therapy or not, there are positives and negatives either way. My surgery is on Tuesday, and I'm not sure how long I will be in the hospital, but I will update as soon as I can. There are many risks to this surgery since I have so many adhesions and tons of scar tissue, so please pray that everything goes smoothly.