My biggest bitch–make that BITCH–is about Dr. Babydoll. I had this woman as part of the team of doctor’s during my surgery. This woman is pretty on the outside–gorgeous actually. But on the inside, not so much as I would find out.

I met Dr. Babydoll in the pre-op area. She seemed nice then, introduced herself, explained what was going to happen next, introduced me to the anesthesiologist and all seemed fine.

My surgery was on a Friday, they took me to surgery at 6 a.m. and were done at 4 p.m. I don’t remember much of Friday but what I do remember is the hell part of this post. When I awoke I had a god awful migraine and of course felt horrible. They had an oxygen mask on me which I fought to get off my face. There were 4 different hands trying to keep that thing on me and I fought them all and got it off. I was on fire, in pain, couldn’t breath, had a migraine complete with thumping head and nausea not to mention that I had just had my head cut open and a hole drilled through my skull!!! They kept saying you have to leave that on (the oxygen) and at that point I could only say 1 word sentences that were: HOT, MIGRAINE, BREATHE, SICK, MIGRAINE, HOT, BREATHE, SICK, PILL, MIGRAINE, DRINK, THIRSTY, MIGRAINE, and my favorite. UH OH. They did finally come up with some kind of a fan that felt like a snake light with a fan in the end. I say felt like because for 2 days I wasn’t able to open my eyes because I couldn’t focus, my eyes were jumping like frogs and I couldn’t see anything anyway.

The rest of what I remember of Friday is my brother and sister-in-law, sister, and husband being there and me crying because I was in such pain. I remember my family leaving for the night and I was still in the ICU. The nurses were in a lot and I was so ill and still couldn’t talk. I remember them moving me up in the bed and the IVs and oxygen with the nose type, not the mask. At one point when the nurses were in and moved me they learned what UH OH was. They moved me around with my migraine and I started saying uh oh uh oh uh oh. They said you have to tell us what’s uh oh. The found out uh oh is I’m going to throw up! I remember puking all over some poor nurse She was very nice about it. I remember her saying that’s ok you had to get that anesthesia out of there. I had several uh oh’s throughout the night but it was dry heaves due to the migraine.

I remember on Saturday some doctors came in and decided I could move to my regular room. Then came all of the discussion on how they were going to move me. I told them I could transfer beds myself as they were having a big discussion about how to move the big lady. My husband held my hand while I got myself up and moved to the other bed that they moved me in then moved to the bed in my room. I had the catheter, oxygen, and IVs yet. The only thing I lost was the bandage off my head which wasn’t suppose to be off yet but due to all my thrashing, it had come off. I have to say that as mortified as I was about having a catheter it was a god send. It wasn’t painful and given the condition I was in there was no way in hell I would ever have been able to get to the bathroom and bed pans + fat people = not happening.

So now it’s Saturday and I still can’t function. I was absolutely miserable yet. I still had the migraine and was in pain from the surgery too. I remember very little of Saturday other than moving rooms and lots of nurses changing IVs and checking my oxygen level and saying that it was still low and adjusting the oxygen. I remember my family being there and hearing them talk but I remember little else from Saturday. I do remember telling my brother and sister-in-law that they didn’t have stay overnight again, that I would be ok and I remember them leaving for home.

Come Sunday my memory improved and that’s when I came to despise Dr. Babydoll.

Dr. Babydoll came in and I was sitting in a chair. My sister and husband were in the room at the time and Dr. Babydoll started bitching at me. She said look at you, here you sit you still have a catheter and oxygen. You didn’t come in here with those and you shouldn’t have them, you need to off those and up walking by now. I opened my eyes a little bit and looked at her and said HEY I agree with you but I didn’t do it! I didn’t ask for this stuff, you guys put it on me. She just repeated that I shouldn’t still have it and that I needed to be walking because the bottoms of my lungs weren’t expanded and that’s why I still had the oxygen. My husband said I’m not fucking having her fall down, there’s no walker or anything here so she can have something to hold onto to try to walk, how the fuck is she suppose to walk when you haven’t provided those things. I know she mumbled something about seeing about getting a walker or something and left after my husband bitched at her.

What I really wanted to say and should have said was HOW THE FUCK do you expect me to move when I can’t even see?! Needless to say, Dr. Babydoll became a real problem.

I do have to say that I understand that the biggest part of the recovery process from surgery is frequent short walks and I understand that; however, to bitch at me about things they did to me is beyond ridiculous. That woman had a real attitude problem and come Monday I would find out what it was.

There were 2 other doctors who came in daily at 6 a.m. and would flip on the brightest lights in the room and say open your eyes and follow my finger. Funny stuff but true. As of Sunday morning, the one had told me I had a condition with my eyes because of surgery and he HOPED it would clear up with time. I don’t recall what he said it was called but the gist of it was that my eyes would not move in the proper direction. The whole follow my finger thing was to see if I could in fact follow his finger with my eyes, I couldn’t. They were each going separate directions and jumping, literally! I couldn’t focus on anything because of the jumping. Evidently this is a common condition following this type of surgery. Therein again it is a good time to ask, how the FUCK can I walk when I cannot focus my eyes and can’t see a fucking thing?!

I did go for a short walk on Sunday because miraculously they came up with a walker after my husband bitched at Dr. Babydoll. The walker thing didn’t work out for me and it went better just holding my husband than the walker but I did humor them and go for a walk though I spent most of the time dozing off and feeling nauseous. Though my family was there, I don’t think I talked to them much because I was just too out of it.

On Monday, Dr. Babydoll came in bright and early in the morning before my husband was there and started in bitching again telling me that the catheter was going to come out that day (the oxygen was already off–I did that myself) and and then she proceeded to tell me that they were sending me home Tuesday. I WAS MORTIFIED! I knew that I was absolutely not ready to leave the hospital and I was scared to death that I would end up in the local podunksville hospital where they’d just kill me off. When my husband got there, I was in an absolute panic that they were going to kick me out of the hospital because she said so and she wasn’t even my main doctor.

This is when my brain really kicked in even if the rest of me didn’t.

I decided that I was going to request to have her taken off my team and that I wasn’t going to take her shit any more. I don’t know who she thought she was making such decisions anyway.

That afternoon (Monday) my husband went back to the hotel for a nap and of course that’s when Dr. Babydoll came back in. The first thing she did was start to bitch about me still having a catheter. I told her I had asked numerous times throughout the day (which I had) to have it taken out and they told me there was no order–she said OH that was probably her fault, she would check to see if she had written the order or not. She left for a couple minutes and came back and this is when I learned what her issue was.

She was just dying to have the “you need to lose weight” conversation and tell me that I should have bariatric surgery, etc. etc. As I’ve heard so so sooooooooo many times in my life, she said you’re so much better than this, you’re intelligent and your weight is just holding you back, etc. Yeah yeah yeah, I have the right to be who I am and this is who I am but I agreed with her to get her off my fucking back AND IT WORKED! Her attitude immediately changed once she got that out of her system. Funny that. She’s a young woman and a piss poor doctor as far as I’m concerned because if you don’t fit her ideal, she’s a rag. But seeing that her attitude changed, I told her that I was mortified at the thought of being released on Tuesday that I knew I wasn’t ready and I told her that if she was going to release me on Tuesday she might as well just shoot me in the head and send me to the cattle yard because I would just end up in the small town hospital where they’d kill me off anyway.

She said that she would see how I was doing tomorrow and decide but I cut that off at the pass because my actual doctor and surgeon came in later and I told them she had said she was releasing me Tuesday and they both said no, not Tuesday–maybe Wednesday. That made me feel a lot better.

Though I had to continue to deal with Dr. Babydoll until my release on Wednesday, she was a different woman. As I said, she just needed to get that whole thing out of her system. On Wednesday before my release, she told me that her ultimate goal was to be a facial plastic surgeon so that she was going to another department for the next 3 months. This was the end of her stint with neurosurgery. Why the fuck I had to be cursed with that bitch I don’t know but thankfully no one else who’s had brain surgery will have to deal with her. I think it speaks volumes that she’s going to be a plastic surgeon. It tells me why she’s such a rag and that I was right on the money that if you don’t fit into her ideal then she’s a bitch to you.

In the end, I was released on Wednesday. I was still having the focus problem with my eyes and nausea due to the loss of hearing in one ear from my surgery. I was so happy to have the catheter off so I could get a shower though showering proved to be pretty difficult due to the loss of balance. I took several short walks in the hospital as I was told to do.

The ride home went pretty well. The nurse had said don’t try to power house straight through for 3 hours to get home, make frequent stops or the nausea will get worse. We only ended up stopping once half way through and that was for a bathroom break. My husband did an awesome job of driving in the big city and on the interstate (something which he hates doing) and he did a great job of navigating. Normally I’m the driver and navigator and he’s the side seat driver but given my illness and lack of focus, I wasn’t able to really help him navigate. I did peek my eyes open a couple times in the city to help him get in the right lane for the turn off but that was about it. I was able to help him by him just telling me where we were by landmarks like the mall, Burger King, etc. then I could tell him where he needed to be and how far the next turn was and what lane to be in. For someone who hates driving and gets really nervous with traffic and stoplights, he did great!

I was so happy to get home and get a real shower though showering is interesting when you’re swaying like a drunk. I still had the focus issue even after getting home but I figured out a great way to combat that. I had a word find book and I forced myself to work on the word find. Even though they’re really simple large type ones, it took at least an hour to do 1 puzzle but it really worked and within a day I had gotten my focus back for the most part.

My recovery continues. I’m still not short frequent walking enough (fat-lazy) but my balance is getting better. I still have dizziness issues but as I walk more that will go away.

This whole experience has been an interesting one and it’s taught me a lot. I know one thing–I would NEVER volunteer to have any kind of surgery EVER EVER again. If I’m not going to die without having surgery then I’m not having it. Even if I had thought about bariatric surgery there is NO FUCKING WAY I would EVER do it, not in a million years! I have had enough surgery to last me a lifetime!

I am scheduled for surgery on March 6. After the surgery I will have lost the hearing in one ear but will be rid of the tumor.

I am so not looking forward to this surgery I can’t even put into words how I am feeling about it.

It’s going to be a long haul where I will have to rely on others for help which is something that I just dread the thought of. Specifically, memememememememememememememememememe is one of the people I will have to rely on once I am out of the hospital. The doctor has told me that I will not be able to be left alone for even as long as 8 hours for two weeks after my surgery. My husband doesn’t have enough vacation time to cover that long and we (like everyone else in the world these days) can’t afford for him to take unpaid family medical leave so there you have it. You have to go with what you have or in this case who you have that is available to help you out.

I don’t want meme nor do I expect her to stay with me the whole time my husband is at work though the doctors think that is what will happen. The bottom line on that is that I am going to have to figure it out for myself. The biggest concern with being left alone is if I were to fall due to being so off balance from losing the hearing in one year. Well I hate to tell them but unless a platoon of soldiers is at my house when I fall it’s not really going to fucking matter–I’m fat (HUGE), it isn’t like 1 person is going to be able to help me get up anyway, I mean seriously–maybe we should just rent a crane in case I fall down. For that matter, I have a bad habit of falling down anyway (hello–HUGE) and have managed each time to get myself up eventually including the time I was knocked out for a few seconds so I think I can handle it. Worse case scenario is that I fall and have to call 911 which is the only thing an attendant would be able to do anyway. My biggest concern really is being able to get my dog in and out while my husband is at work in terms of needing physical assistance for anything.

The doctors say that I am not even to shower alone (once again hello HUGE) for 2 weeks after the surgery due to the lack of balance. How the hell do you NOT shower alone? Seriously! Maybe I’m not fully prepared for this or not seeing the whole picture but I have been huge all my life and I know how to cope with being huge. When you’re this size, nothing is ever easy but I get it done the best I can. To me, this will be no different.

My true concern post surgery is more my emotional state in dealing with the loss of hearing (though I’ll still have one good ear). I’m sure that depression will be an issue for me as it would for anyone in the same situation it’s just that my obsessive compulsiveness will make it more challenging. I can’t say that have meme here with me would help me not be depressed. In fact, it would probably make it worse since she drives me nuts not to mention she talks really loud and has a grating voice–something which a half deaf person isn’t going to want to deal with.

In a lot of ways I wish I could have a friend come stay with me but that’s not practical either seeing that I only have 2 half assed friends who would be available neither of whom I could tolerate for long periods of time. This is one instance where if might be a bad thing that I have chosen to isolate myself from others and built the brick wall around myself for protection. Had I not done this, I could potentially have a lot of people who were willing to come stay with me and prop up my fragile emotions post surgery but as it is, that’s not likely to happen.

I have comforted myself with this–the surgery may not happen. The doctors want to do a stress test (HUGE WOMAN HERE) to make sure my heart can handle being under anesthesia for at least 6 but more like 8 or 10 hours for the surgery. I really think there could be an issue with my heart and that the surgery will not happen. Let me live in my fantasy world where they know me, it wouldn’t be the first shattered fantasy I’ve had if I’m wrong about my heart. After all, being huge and finding out your heart is in good condition can’t possibly be a bad thing, right.

So there you go–there’s the update on the medical stuff.

At this point I am very disgusted and don’t know what to do. My “best” option according to him is radiation to make the tumor stop growing. No matter what they do whether it’s radiation or surgery, I’m not going to get rid of the ringing in my ear or get back the hearing I’ve already lost.

If I do nothing at all, the tumor will continue to grow though he assures me it is very slow growing I will continue to lose more and more of the hearing in that ear.

I’m just pissed off that I can’t go to a fucking doctor who doesn’t feel the necessity to preach to me about my weight. Yeah yeah yeah I know, it’s not healthy blah blah blah but the way they act you’d swear I didn’t know that I was fat.

In the meantime, I suffer with ringing in my ear and lost hearing and ponder what to do about it.

I really think I need a 2nd opinion.

I HATE FUCKING DOCTORS

Have I mentioned I HATE fucking doctors?!

I hate doctors already and this is just part of the reason why. I am never taken seriously and am always fobbed off by medical people.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I have decided that I can’t ignore it any more. I can’t continue to feel like this. I’m so depressed and sad and angry and knotted up inside that I just can’t take it any more.

Even though I don’t want to take more medications, I feel I have no choice. I just can’t pull myself out of it and I know I’m just going to keep going downhill if I don’t do something.

So last Thursday (Dec 13) I got a hankering for Doritos (something I don’t eat much) and stopped at the local station to get some. BAD IDEA!

I pulled up as close to the door as I could and they only have a little step up to get onto the sidewalk. I took the little step up and promptly fell down! There was ice right there on the step up. It was clear so I didn’t realize it was icy until I was laying on the ground. Worst part is, I fell on my already aching shoulder. Another customer there saw me fall and came running over to see if I was ok. I said I was but knew immediately I wasn’t. My hand bruised right away and my poor shoulder ached. I went inside and told the woman working I’d fallen and she asked (3 times) if I was ok and I said (3 times) NO and that was that. She didn’t offer any other assistance or anything but did say she was sorry and went and put some salt on the icy spot.

I got my stupid chips and came home and was in pretty bad pain. What hurt the absolutely worst was my neck on the opposite side. It was so bad I was afraid I had cracked a vertebra in my neck. I called the chiropractor and made an appointment for Friday morning.

I talked to a couple friends who said that the station should have to pay for any medical things from it as it was their problem it was icy. I called the station back Friday morning and said I need to seek medical treatment for this and the woman asked if I wanted her to fill out an accident report. I told her yes, you better just in case it’s worse than what I think (still thinking cracked vertebra). She said her manager would call me back.

No one called me back Friday. I went to the chiropractor and she felt my neck and said it was pretty tight and obviously jammed (the wrong way) and she adjusted me. She also put my thumb, wrist, and shoulder all back where they belonged. She told me I was in bad shape–I knew this–and that I would have to come back a few times to get things straightened out. She also said to ice my neck and shoulder (isn’t that what caused the problem–ice?!).

So I’ve been icing my shoulder and sitting like a lump all weekend.

I know though that falling this early in the not even yet winter means it’s going to be a bad season of falling down.

I don’t know now if I should call the station back again and say no one got back to me or what. maybe they think I’ll just go away. Having just moved to town I don’t want to cause any problems. One thing I like about having moved is that no one knows me and I like it that way. I like the low profile and don’t want to ruin it.

Why is it that women have to deal with things like the sneezenpees? Why don’t men sneezenpee? It’s just not right!