Nose OP

On Monday, Seppl drove me to Borna. Things went so quickly after that. I was given a hospital gown, a pill to make me sleepy, and rolled into the OP room. The next thing I knew, I woke up and knew it was over. The doctor there asked me if I had pain and I said a little, so she gave me some pain killer in my IV, and that's when all the craziness started.

As they rolled me back to my room, I barfed. As I lay completely weak in my bed, I barfed. As I tried to breathe through my mouth without dying of a dry tongue, I barfed. Every time a nurse came in, I was told to drink lots of water. But I was so weak that I could barely reach the water and lift my head to drink, and when I did, I would get dizzy and barf. My roommate, Nadine, was awesome and rang the nurse each time I threw up. One of the boys who is doing his civil service at the hospital brought me a new hospital gown at least 5 times, and the last time I couldn't help but cry. I really think it was the pain medicine.

But the night, oh, the night. I was tired and weak and had an empty stomach and dirty (yeah, they left the personal cleaning up of the barf to me, but I couldn't see it myself), but worst of all, my back was in really bad shape. No matter what position I was in (and I was so weak and dizzy it was hard to shift), it hurt and I don't think I slept more than a couple of hours.

The next day, things were much better. I ate a normal breakfast and had no pain (in my nose anyway), just one hardcore black eye. Mike and the Austins visited. David visited. The Heidlers visited and helped me learn some exercises to help my back. Friends from the ward called and sent text messages, though I hadn't told many people about the OP. One day, a man walked in and my roommate and I glanced at each other to see who knew him. It turns out he was the doctor I'd talked to on the phone who suggested I do the OP in Borna and not in Leipzig. He suggested I wait a year to get my tonsils out, since they could have had problems because of the nose problem. I was getting myself ready to do it in October, but I have now heard several opinions about that, so we'll see.

The last couple of days in the hospital took a lot of patience. I sat around without energy, tried to read with an ice pack on my face, prayed on a bench outside, etc. I was so glad that my roommate Nadine was so nice. She had no black eyes whatsoever. Whenever people came to visit me, they asked her if she still had to go into surgery. We joked that we boxed and she won. When she left a day earlier than I did, I gave her a Book of Mormon with my information in it. I hope we can stay in contact. Less than 30 minutes later, a new roommate came in--this time an older woman who had a lot of questions. I was so glad to help her and we immediately struck up conversations about faith. The missionaries visited me and talked to her too.

I paced the hall several nights and one night randomly discovered that an office was open and a computer with an internet connection was on, resulting in some nice email reading. After I discovered the joy of sleeping pills and muscle pain pills and salve, I was able to sleep a bit better.

Hospital food was better than I eat myself.

On Thursday, David and I were rebels and took the bus into the town of Borna. We got a pizza that really hit the spot since I could actually taste the pepperoni. I was really tired by the time we got back to the bus stop, and there some drunk homeless men talked to David about young men shooting at them.

The doctor said I should stay until Sunday, but I said no, because I had promised to play the piano at a girl's baptism. Somehow they thought I was a concert pianist because of that and because of my carpal tunnel braces.

Bruder Werner brought me back to Leipzig on Saturday, where I was lucky to have a personal nurse (David) take care of me. The baptism went well, though I seemed to scare children or just get confused stares. Jenny and Seppl and David had to schlepp a completely pale and weak Michelle to a nose cleaning on Sunday after three hours of church, which included singing, giving a lesson while holding a screaming 3-year-old, playing the piano, dealing with pain and lack of easy breathing, but above all answering the question, "What happened to you?"

The doctor asked me how the concert went, and I asked her several questions about my tonsils, pain killers, etc. before I started to faint and she had to put my chair back. That nose-vacuuming is just as uncomfortable and disgusting as I remember. It seems to hurt my vocal cords, they stick that thing so far back. But that doesn't hurt nearly as much as when she tried to pull something off the side of my nose that was stuck to the threads they'd sewn in (yeah, too much information, sorry).

Tomorrow they'll change the splint, next week they'll take the bandage off.

The first steps in getting healthy are underway. It's going to be a long process, but I have faith that it will work out and the support I've received in the last while has already helped me so much. (Then I can wait another 12 years until it's time to be unhealthy again, ha ha.) So now I leave you with a wonderful picture of my black eyes. (Every day leaves me looking a little different, but you get the idea.)