Not too long after saying goodbye to Andrew we received an email from him informing us that he was at the hospital in Provo with a partially collapsed lung. Of course that is not an exciting thing of any one to hear or to experience. Paul did his best to try and find out more information. He called the MTC and spoke to a woman who was less than helpful. She questioned everything Paul said and everything but called Drew a "liar" just pulling a prank on us. She had to check out and verify the story and then she'd call us back. After a while Drew called us and let us know what was happening. The hospital had sent him back to the MTC and he was going back for another x-ray later that day. After his x-ray Paul received call from his branch president asking him to come in and give Andrew a blessing. Paul was able to spend the evening with Andrew in the hospital awaiting his surgery the next day. I'll let Andrew tell the rest of his story....
Sunday
Sunday morning, after breakfast, Elder Lutu and I got back to the classroom and sat down. We were just talking with Soeur Long and Soeur Stevens and suddenly it felt hard to breathe. My left side was hurting and every time I took a deep breath it hurt even more. I turned to them and said, “I think I broke my neck,” and I was kind of joking - and thought the pain would go away. But after a minute or two and when it didn’t I was still having a hard time breathing. The pain started going up into my shoulder and that made me think it was bad, like a heart attack, so I told Elder Lutu that we should go see the MTC doctor. He was really nice and opened doors for me.
We got to the front desk and asked them where the MTC medical center was and they said the doctor wasn’t in on Sundays or Mondays what a coincidence. They asked what was going on and Elder Lutu explained that I was having a hard time breathing. I am sure they get a lot of fake stuff or panic attacks, so they seemed to want to know if it was real or not. They ended up calling the ER in Provo saying they were going to bring an Elder in to be examined. I could hear the conversation and they said, “yeah, he’s visibly in pain.” They needed me to have my insurance card and photo ID; I had left them back in the residence hall. Elder Lutu and one of the desk workers went back to get them. They didn’t seem to be in a rush at all. It felt like a very long time before they came back. They took us in a van down to the ER, just Elder Lutu and I.
When we got there, the ER people were also not pressed for time. One lady literally whistled as she pushed me back to my room. At this point, they didn’t tell us what they thought it was at all. They just said they were going to run some blood tests and do an x-ray and a CT scan. When they tried to put an IV in, it made me pretty nauseous and I threw up into a barf bag. Elder Lutu was having fun watching TV. I think he had missed it. I also think he was feeling guilty and eventually changed the channel to BYU TV. They gave me some nausea medication through the IV. I don’t think they realized that I was just throwing up because I saw the IV needle. The nausea medication made me really tired and I couldn’t really keep my eyes open.
A few days before this, we went over something called adjusting to missionary life. I learned from that that when Elder Lutu is stressed he steals things. In the doctor’s office he took handfuls of plastic gloves and barf bags and face masks. This also explains the mini-fridge.
They took an x-ray and came back with the results. They said that just a very small portion of my left lung had collapsed. They sounded pretty optimistic about it and they said to come back at 4pm that same afternoon and if it looked the same or better, they would just let it heal on its own. If it had gotten worse, they would need to intervene further. They had also given me pain medication through the IV, so I was feeling a lot better. We went and took the little van back to the MTC and tried to convince the driver to stop at Panda Express, but he wouldn’t.
They told me I could have one phone call that day, so I should decide to do it after the first x-ray or after the second, and that it could be only 7 minutes long. I tried to call Mom and Dad, but they didn’t answer, so I decided to wait until after the second x-ray. Everybody in my district was very worried when I got back, especially the three mothers that I have. I decided to send out an email to all the family since I couldn’t get a hold of Mom and Dad. While I was writing the email on the computer in our classroom, Soeur Beatty (one of the mothers) read my email and asked me questions about the contents. I was still kind of drugged, otherwise I would have snapped at her.
Parentals!
Hello! I tried to call you a few minutes ago but no answer. Ill try again in a little while.
This morning after breakfast, my left side of my chest started hurting. It got worse and worse until it started to hurt to breath. The pain was radiating up into my shoulder. We decided to go to the hospital place at the mtc. They were closed so the front desk had us go to the ER. They did some xrays and took blood and put an IV in. I threw up but i think that was from seeing the IV. They really didnt seem to be in much of a hurry. haha. But they came back with the results of the Xray and said that a small part of my left lung collapsed. Im supposed to go in for another Xray at 4. If it looks better, they will just let it heal, but if it is worse they will have to put some kind of tube in and leave it for a few days. Sounds horrid. Hopefully it will just be better. Hooray! Anyways. Ill let you all know what happens after 4.
Elder Johnson
After I sent the email, we went on with our normal Sunday actitivities. We went to priesthood meeting in one of the classrooms nearby. The room was super hot and after a half hour I started to feel really lightheaded. I told my companion I needed to go. We went back to the residence hall and he made me a pizza and I took my ibuprofen. I started to feel better after that. We had Sacrament Meeting and halfway through some old guy came in and started asking around for me. He took me out in the hall and said something like, “So, you told your family that your lung collapsed?” I explained what happened and what my email had said. He seemed to halfway believe me. We got to the front desk and the lady there was much more accusatory. She seemed to think I was faking everything and she said, “You sent an email to everyone saying you were still in the hospital and that your lung had collapsed.” I tried to explain, but she seemed not to believe me. My family was panicking. The old guy said that we should go in and call the family. Elder Lutu had followed me out, even though the old guy said I could just follow him. Lutu is extremely possessive of the companionship.
So we went into a little room that has a phone. Lutu had to stay in the room with me while I talked to my family. The guy called Paul and I talked to Paul and explained what had happened. Apparently, Paul had called the MTC and misread my email and thought I was still in the hospital. He wanted to get more information, but the lady at the front desk was rude to him and Paul freaked out at her and told her where she should stick it (just kidding). I talked to Paul for a little while, he said that since we had a free phone call we should use it to our advantage. We talked about tennis stats and he wanted to talk about Elder Lutu, but Lutu was in the room and the speaker on the phone was loud and I was worried he could hear the conversation.
Life went back to normal and I went back to Sacrament meeting. It was kind of a weird situation because half the people in my branch knew I had gone to the hospital and the other half were still treating me like dirt (just kidding everyone's nice). I continued on with the rest of the Sunday activities. I even went on the little walk around the temple. You'll see in photos to come that I was feeling quite fine. I got lots of smiling pictures at the temple. Elder Lutu loved being in charge and refused to let me carry my own folder with my medical information in it.
We got down to the front desk and they were expecting us. They took us in one of the vans down to the ER. They started us right off with the wonderful pain scale. They seem to always judge you a lot on what your answer is. It's probably one of my least favorite things but I've really learned to love it this week. It's become a part of me. They took us back to another room and had us sit for a while. I got some good pictures of Elder Lutu wearing barf bags on his hands and I tried to tempt him into stealing some Dora the Explorer face masks.
They took us to an x-ray room and I think Elder Lutu was bummed that he didn't get to push the wheelchair. He has become another mother figure in my life. I was optimistic because my pain had decreased throughout the day. The Doctor came in with results. He had a weird bedside manner. He said, "It's bigger". He showed me the before and after x-rays. On the first one about 6% of one of my lungs had collapsed, but on the second one it had increased to about 20%. He immediately started talking about our options, none of which sounded good. The first option was the tube through my chest while I was awake then and there. One of the nurses actually brought in the tube. Option number two was a surgery where they would remove some of the lung, add some staples and some sticky tack to bring it back to its original form. The first question I had was, "Which surgery would I be put under for?" That would be the one for me. They said the first option I would be awake for, but there was a 30 to 40% chance of recurrence within the next couple of years. The second option they would put me out, it would have a 5 or 6 day hospital stay, but there would only be a 2-3% chance of recurrence.
The Doctor went into a different room and called mother and father and left me to imagine the horrors I was to experience in the hours and days to come. My imagination immediately turned to the Doctors inserting tubes between my ribs, and re-inflating my lungs with their breath. Mama Lutu was very comforting throughout this process and walked around the room trying on various medical paraphernalia to add to his collection. I was hoping the van would come and cart him away soon. Again, taking advantage of our limited calls for the next two years, I spoke with mother and father for about an hour, mostly about what was going on out there in real life.
The Doctor made the second option sound much better and we decided on that. My decision was based on the fact that I would not have to be awake, but the reduced chance of recurrence was an added benefit. The Doctor made both options seem pretty easy and harmless, but I would later find out just how untrue this was.
I was feeling annoyed that they would not let me go back to the MTC and retrieve some of the things I would be needing for the next few days, especially since my pain wasn't very bad at all. Elder Lutu said that he would go back and retrieve stuff for me. My two questions for him were number 1. you and what car? and number 2. you and what memory? (he forgets at least 4 things every time we leave the building). I wrote him a list of things I needed. And made sure it got into his pocket and reviewed with him which pocket the list was in. They carted me up to my suite on the cardiac progressive care unit floor filled with the elderly. And we spent the next 4 hours guiltily watching TV. Paul and President Dowling said they would come over at 8:30 to give me a blessing. When it got close to that point Elder Lutu said "I don't want President Dowling to think I've been watching TV." So he turned his couch away from the TV and grabbed a couple pamphlets to act like he was reading. I happily watched Rudy. At this point I wasn't really nervous about anything at all. The ER doctor really made the surgery seem like no big deal. Maybe I should have thought about how I'd have a 5 day recovery in the hospital. Later in the week multiple Nurses would tell me how this surgery is more painful than open heart surgery. Im glad they didnt tell me this now! Paul, President Dowling and Elder Lutu They gave me a great blessing and it was fun to see people. President Dowling said he would go with Elder Lutu and retrieve some stuff for me.
I have became accustomed to wearing nothing but my cute gown; I think it'll be a hard transition back to the suit. President Dowling brought back a suitcase full of stuff. And I tried to make my room my own. It's difficult when you have oxygen in your face, stuff in your arm, suctions on you chest, pumps on your legs, and an oxygen monitor on your finger.
Monday
It was a hard morning. Gugglebum (his name to be decided at a later time) came in and asked me some questions about why I was in the hospital. He seemed to really not know my case and he was replacing the physician that was helping me the day before. His tone was constantly accusing and he just didnt' seem like a nice person. He made me feel like it was my fault my lung collapsed. He asked if I was going to college or what I was doing with my life and I told him I was in the MTC going to France and he said, "We'll see." He was just really comforting. He went and looked at my x rays and returned a little bit later. He was explaining the surgery we had decided upon in great detail which was making me feel sick. In my defense I think that hearing tubes being removed from your chest cavity would make anyone feel sick. I asked him if he could maybe not going into so much detail. His response was, "No I'm going to. You're an adult you can take it." That really shut me up. I think for the rest of our conversation I just looked at the wall. Paul came and visited for a little bit and then he had to go to work. He made sure thousands of people had my number and I got calls for hours. I was quite sure I'd need surgery on my arm from holding the phone for so long. Aunt Janice and Uncle John came and Caitlyn joined a little later. We kind of just sat around. It was kind of hard to do stuff with all of my attachments. I wasn't even allowed to use the bathroom without letting people know; they wanted to "monitor" it. Creeps. I couldn't eat before the surgery that day and I had thrown up most of my food from the day before so I was really pretty hangry. They promised the surgery would be at 2 and at 1 o'clock they came in and said it would be closer to 3 but in fact they didn't take me down till 4:30. During this time I was getting hungrier and hungier and hangrier and hangrier. The pain was getting worse but I'm pretty sure it was all due to hunger. I was feeling pretty nervous that day, I'm pretty sure I had heard more about the tubes that would be sticking out of me for days after. The surgery was feeling less and less like a good deal. Trudie took my down to what I thought would be the OR but it was actually a room full of other patients waiting for surgery. It was a place of nightmares. There was a patient who seemed to have a broken back or something and was constantly moaning. He didn't speak any English so he had an interpreter but that wasn't helpful because he was mostly moaning. I knew that was what I would look like after surgery. A couple nurses tried to comfort me; they tried to bribe me with cooked blankets but I wasn't going to let that work. They stuck me with tubes and made me talk about my family, I knew it would be the last time I ever would. Right when I first got down there they told me I would get the epidural while I was awake, not a smart move "male nurse." I panicked for the next hour and forty-five minutes. They had me down in that room doing nothing for days. They started treating me like a baby while they were explaining the procedure. When the nurse was explaining the epidural and how it wouldn't hurt she said, "when a mama is having a baby...." you know the rest. One thing I had been nervous about the entire time is that one of doctors had mentioned that after these types of surgeries they sometimes change your mission assignment, this would be the worst. Since it is up to the surgeon to decide whether I can leave on time or not I decided beforehand that I would tell him that I was willing to do anything to make sure I still go to France. We were finally ready to go into the OR. They had me sit up and put a very calming drug into my IV, it was very nice. I don't even remember them putting in the epidural. I wish they would have said beforehand that they were going to give me drugs before the epidural that way I didn't have to spend an hour stressing. Good one "male nurse." I was feeling quite looping by then, they hadn't put me all the way under, they were waiting for the OR. They took me in, I don't remember this but I was told after that I pointed to the surgeon and said, "I'm going to France. So don't mess it up." and he said, "You are going to France." And then I slept.
I woke up after years in the recovery room. Unfortunately I am not very entertaining after anesthesia. Millions of people and noises wheeled me back up to my room. And I remember mother and father were on the iPad FaceTiming. It took the nurses days to hook up the monitors. I was living in pure thirst. They wouldn't let me have water but they let me have ice. I probably ate six gallons of it. I was like a king on my bed opening my mouth and people inserting ice chips into my mouth. It was the good kind; Costa Vida kind. Sleep was sparing. Aunt Janice stayed the night in the hospital version of a lazy boy chair. I had super power intensive hearing and was alerted by every noise asking, "what's that? why is it making that sound." And believe me there were noises.
Tuesday
Emilie (who flew in from New York) and Paul came that morning. Emilie flew in from New York super short notice just be to there with me. Her and I have always been best friends It was super nice of her. I would not have survieded the week without her. She got like zero sleep and I know she was supposed to have a busy week at work. She’s just the best. Emilie said, "Drew is very hesitant to move around or disturb the tubes or IV but he needs to do that to make progress in healing." "One of the doctors in particular wasn't very nice, so Drew and I had a secret word for him (Gugglebum, in Colette's honor) and when he came in this morning I knew it was him. I worked on his bedside manner :)" I had the epidural in so my chest was mostly numb. The epidural was giving me medicine constantly but I could also push a button and get an extra dose every thirty minutes. It was annoying because the machine wouldn't tell me when the last time I pressed it was so I had to watch the clock but that didn't work out so well because I couldn't remember anything. My epidural medicine ran out about every hour and it takes them 15 minutes to change it; somehow they had to relearn how to do it every time. This happened every hour for the 3 days that I had the epidural in. The nurses change shifts every 12 hours so that didn't help with the process. Luckily I wasn't hurting too bad. I think I still had medicine in me from the surgery and I had the epidural medicine going. I felt like I couldn't move at all because I was scared of my tubes moving or my catheter moving or my epidural moving.
I was still tired and exhausted and I tried to sleep most of the morning. Emilie said, “He was actually doing pretty well that day in comparison to the others. I think the pain block from the surgery was still there and he wasn't in as much pain. We were worried that he was a little too sedentary - he did not want to sit up or move at all. Bedda and Mels came to visit. We took his first walk that day. He did 1 lap around the nurses' station His most inactive, uneventful day.”
Emilie spent the night with me in the hospital and we slept pretty much as well as you can in a hospital with nurses coming in to check your vitals every hour and machines beeping every minute.
Wednesday
Mornings were always the worst. I was stiff and not happy, never got enough sleep.Wednesday Morning I went on a walk and when I say walk I mean 4 laps around the nurses station. I had to drag along my three bags of body fluids with the tubes attached to me and also my IV stand. So it was pretty much a big caravan. On the walk probably and 85 year old was lapping me. After a little while I said to her, "Lapped me again." She turned to me and said, "Don't worry I remember when I was where you are." Let's remember I'm 18 years old.
It was kind of a hard ordeal to get back into bed; this is when the catheter was most uncomfortable; when the tube went above my body it felt like the liquid was going back into my bladder. I always wanted a lot of slack in the tubes. They had pull the sheets up under me to help me lay straight. Right after I got situated Scott from radiology came and said they needed to take me to get an X ray. I'm quite sure that I just glared at him. Usually I try to hide these kinds of feelings but this week I was much too exhausted to care. I had to get out of bed again which also was a hard process. We had to attached all my packages, boxes and bags to the wheelchair. Scott was incompetent. Caitlyn and Emilie had to carry half the stuff and somehow he still managed to run me into the walls at least 8 times. We got down to radiology and they had me stand up for my X rays. 2016 was supposed to be good posture year but I've really failed on that front. It was very painful to have to raise my arms above my head but they really don't care about what I want do they. We got all situated in the wheelchair again and Scott pushed us back to the elevator. I was in a lot of pain now. I think I just cried in the elevator ride up. I think Scott purposefully found speed bumps to go over. When we got back to the room that’s when Scott really started to show his incompetence. It took a little while for me to stand up and I think Scott may have been in a hurry so he was trying to "help." He tried to lift me up by my sides, I tried to yell at him but it was too late the damage was done. That in and of itself was very painful but I'm pretty sure he moved the tubes inside my chest which made the next six hours some of the most painful hours of my life.
Every time I would breath in I could feel the tubes touching my lungs. One of the nurses said that the nerves in your lungs are on a different track then the nerves on the outside of your body so the epidural doesn't have a ton of affect on the inside. The epidural helped a lot for the incision points but the tubes on the inside I was feeling full blast. We got me into bed but I could feel the tubes laying against my lung and it was horrible so we got me back out and I tried sitting, this also was unbearable. I tried to lean in different directions to get the tube to move away from my lung but I couldn't escape. We tried to get me back into bed hoping it would've moved a little bit but I couldn't stand it so back to the chair. I still couldn't stand the chair at all so I tried to just stand; I put my head on the table. I was so tired but it was impossible to do anything. This was the worst of all days because of Scott and his incompetence. I eventually moved back to the chair with my head on the table. It was impossible to escape the tube. This was the worst pain in my life. I just sat there crying wishing I could be sleeping. I was waiting in agony hoping that the tube hurting in my chest was the one they were going to take out.
We were waiting all morning on the X rays because that would determine whether the tube could come out or not. Every time a nurse would come in, which was every 15 minutes, I would ask if they were going to take the tube out. It seemed as if they were in no rush to relieve my pain. They made me go on another walk which was unbearable- all because of Scott.
They finally told me they would take out the tube that day and I was very worried about the pain that would be associated with this. Everyone said it wouldn't hurt and that I would feel 10 times better after they took it out. The second part was true after a couple of hours. When the time finally came I was very scared. Three nurses came in with shackles, just joking. Throughout this whole stay I was always scared they were going to do stuff without telling me first. I told the nurses I didn't want to hear what they were doing but I definitely wanted to know what they were doing before they did it. They decided ot tell me what they were doing any ways. They cut the stitches and then told me they were going to practice. I was scared what practice meant, what could we be practicing. They told me they wanted me to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and hold it. I stopped half way through and accused them of just going for it. They said they were really just going to practice. So we practiced once and then we prepared to do it. I was really freaking out and when they said we were actually doing it we got to holding the breathe part she said, "Oh wait I forgot to remove part of the stitch." She was the worst. We really went for it this time; I breathed in, out, and then held it. The next minute was the worst pain I'm sure I will ever experience. It was also the grossest feeling I will ever experience. It felt like she was still pulling it out even after they had promised she was done. My whole body was just clenched and I'm sure I broke Emilie's hand. The next thirty minutes were full of a lot of pain but after that it did feel much better than it had when the tube was in; it felt much clearer, almost empty, and I couldn't feel it rubbing against my lungs any more. After the pain had half way subsided I apologized to the nurses for being such a baby and one nurse said, "You're not a baby. This surgery is more painful than open heart surgery."
Emilie said, “Day 2 post op was bad - couldn't get comfortable after that bad X-ray transfer. They made him walk anyway. In the afternoon the nurse showed up and announced she would take out the big tube. Drew was petrified. She removed the stitch and then did practice breathing with him and then realize she hadn't removed he stitch enough so had to start over. Drew looked like he was going to die. Then she actually did it and she paused a little bit while pulling out that enormous tube (18 inches). the other nurse with her was like "don't stop!!!" She kept pulling and it seemed impossibly long. Should never have been in a body. Drew didn't know when she had stopped.”
Jeff and Bonnie came and I was feeling quite good. It was fun to visit with them. They are so nice. After they left I started to go downhill again and the pain got a lot worse. Soeur Echols and Frere Adams from the MTC came and visited me. I couldn't tell if they were expecting to teach me or if they were just there to visit but I was definitely not up for teaching. They were really nice and Emilie and them spoke some French.
We did another walk that day. I increased my amount of laps every time as they promised that walking would be one of the things that would help me recover the fastest. Caitlyn and Melanie came as well as Rob, Mary, Scott, Kristen, and Mary Kate came and visited that night which was super fun. I was glad I got to see them again but it was very hard because they made me laugh a bunch. Laughing isn't as easy as it used to be. I think it was because of all the laughing that I started leaking chest fluids down my side. I wish I would've felt better when they were there. I was feeling nauseous and had a pretty bad headache. I was happy they came to see me and they brought me gifts and Krispy Kreme donuts.
Everyone left and I tried to go to sleep. This was the worst of all nights. The nurse came in and told me that when I feel asleep I would stop breathing. This was very scary. I was so tired and exhausted but I was scared to fall asleep. I would fall asleep anyways but I would wake up when I'd feel myself stop breathing. The nurse said she would monitor me and we could keep doing this all night but I was too scared of sleeping so I asked them to bring in the machine to help me keep breathing. This was just the worst. It was super tight around my head and it felt like I was sticking my head out a car window. It was also scary because no one could hear me talk so I felt like I had to yell to get anyone to hear me. It felt like it was stretching out my lungs and that was very painful. I think I got an hour and a half of sleep that night. When they took the machine off my head I had the worst headache of my life so they gave me some Tylenol but it took awhile for it to kick in. Emilie and I had a donut party at 4 or 5 in the morning. She would put chunks of donut in my mouth for me.
Emilie remembers the night, "The night of post op day 2 (wed) was really bad because drew would slip into a shallow breathing pattern where the nurses came in and just stood and watched the machines. After a while they brought in the darth vador equipment and he sounded awful. When he needed something I had to lean over so close to his mouth to hear him. They sat him up for a while in the middle of the night over on the chair to get him to breathe deeper and took him on a walk. He didn't sleep much at all. About 5am we sat and ate donuts together. We managed to laugh a little."
Thursday
Emilie said, "They took him for an X-ray really early that next morning (thurs). By 7am. We were encouraged a bit because it indicated he might be able to get second tube out. Drew was worried they would remove the epidural as soon as they removed the tube and the prospect of the pain seemed scary." Emilie had to leave that morning and she felt so bad, like she was abondoning me but I still had so much family there and I didn’t feel that way at all. Unfortunately she was only there for the worst parts, she missed the pre-op and post-op which were the “good” parts. We FaceTimed her on Saturday and she was very relieved that I really was doing much better.
I had to/got to have a catheter all week. Now that it's out I halfway miss it. The feeling of it being inside of me was definitely horrible and moving around was kind of difficult but I got to drink as much as I wanted with no consequences. One of the nurses said she'd never had someone produce as much liquid as I did, granted I was the youngest on the floor by about 50 years. She said that she has to have people try to output 1000mL a day and by 11am I had output 3000mL. Cleaning the catheter was definitely an unpleasant feeling. That morning I was feeling some pressure in my bladder so they decided to do an ultrasound on my bladder to see if everything was okay. I'm a real woman now, epidural and ultrasound. I'll be sharing the gender results of the ultrasound in three months.
The removal of the second tube was not nearly as bad as the first one. This tube was a little shorter than the first one and not nearly as thick or wide. The nurses said this would also hurt less because this tube wasn't hard plastic like the first one. Unfortunately I had a hard time trusting them because the nurses for the first tube really under stated what the pain would be like. I asked the anethestiaologist people if they could give me some extra drugs for the removal of the second tube and they agreed. They made me practice breathing again and I'm sure I broke Caitlyn's hand throughout this whole process again. Then we went for it. With all of these tubal removals I could definitely hear a suctiony tube removal noise, I don't know if it was in my head or if it was actually making noise. Caitlyn didn't tell me til days later but she got chest fluid all over her clothes. I felt like they were still pulling the tube out of me even after they said they were done. Afterwards I definitely felt like my left side was lighter than before. I was very happy not to have to adjust my tubes when getting in and out of bed. I felt like I was missing a part of me.
Only one large tube remained in my body and we won't say where that led. They gave me a little time to recover and then came in and turned off the epidural. Unfortunately they had to leave it in my back til that night just in case. They started me up on my oral narcotics and then came back a little while later to take out the catheter. Caitlyn was extremely sweet and was even willing to hold my hand while they removed this tube. We won’t go into much detail but I will saying it felt like peeing hot sauce. Not extremely pleasant. I was now pretty much tubeless and was definitely ready to get the epidural and IV out.
Janice came and we spent the day walking and practicing on my little breathing machine. I was feeling nauseous and had a really bad headache. THe nurses said that it could be from the percocet, that happens to some people, or it could be from being hooked up to the epidural for three days. The epidural site started hurting a lot, I’m sure it was from being in my back for so long and also since the epidural wasn’t running any more that part of my body wasn’t numb any more. Caitlyn left and Janice and I hung out and choked down some chick-fil-a. The nurses made comments about what good food I had all week. I just wish I would’ve been able to enjoy any of it. Paul and Melanie came and that was fun. I anxiously waited for them to run the blood test and then remove the epidural. We watched some Australian Open which usually entertains me for days but I couldn’t really stay focused. They came and drew blood and the guy sprayed blood all over my sheets. Not cool “male nurse.” I’m usually the most squeamish of all people but after days of tubes in my body, and shots in my stomach and vial after vial of blood drawn from me didn’t phase me any more. I don’t know if was from being so exhausted or if I’ve really gotten over this trial. They came back surprisingly face with my blood results and removed the epidural. It was great to have that out of my back. They tried to tell me, “Oh it’s just small,” and showed it to me. Not cool “male nurse #6.” Janice and I stayed up late typing my journal and laughing. The percocet really makes me kind of loopy and Janice was being very very funny. I think she had also taken some percocet or something because she was laughing very much. Thankfully it was a very uneventful night, the nurses let me sleep in four hour stretches. It was just the best.
Friday
Caitlyn came first thing in the morning and Janice left. They told us we would probably be out by noon and I wasn’t feeling extremely excited to go back to the MTC. One doctor came in and was telling us what the recovery would be like. He made it sound quite tragic. He said I would feel horrible for the next 8-10 weeks. He said that I couldn’t lift more than 10 pounds with my left hand aka a gallon of milk, or so he says. He was basically Gugglebum #2. Mother said it might be a good idea to see if the MTC would let me spend at least a day at Paul and Caitlyn’s to sleep and recover. I thought this was highly unlikely that the MTC would go for it. Mother called some people and they went for it! They said I could spend as much time as I needed and then return. This was great news. I was feeling kind of sick and was very relieved. The nurses said that “Doug” should be coming in to go over discharge paperwork with us and contact the MTC. They kept on saying he would be coming and he kept not coming. After we found out taht I would just be going back to Paul and Caitlyn’s we told the nurses and they said “Doug” had to verify it. But an hour later, still no “Doug,” the nurses came back and said that “Doug” was just going to believe that we had talked to the MTC. Basically, we don’t think there ever was a “Doug.”
They finally took my IV out. I was free as an oak. So 5 days later and no showers we packed up.
We got all ready to go and guess who showed up? Who could it be but Scott. I decided as a missionary I need to be forgiving but I also wasn’t going to let him any where near my body. I had a nice conversation with him as we waiting for Caitlyn to pull the car around and it turned out he had lived in France for 3 years and served a French Caribbean mission. He was just a sweet little guy. I got in the car and I was free. I spent a nauseous car ride back to Paul and Caitlyn’s where I napped for hours. I spent the weekend taking narcotics and laying around. I’ll returned to the prison and Mama Lutut soon, I know I’ll be in good hands with her. Luckily I leave for France in three weeks.
SO, after all of that Andrew stayed at our house for a few days which was great. Mallory formed a great attachment to him and still asks for him each day. So we went for round two of the MTC drop off.
We are so delighted to hear that he is doing very well and is already to head out to France.
