Vacation: Week One

Maritza here, blogging to you LIVE from the very exotic (not erotic) BEDROOM, located in the heart of Aliso Viejo country! This is day...uh...4? 5? of my very awesome vacation! So far, I have tasted delicious foods, gone to the beach, and even climbed a mountain! How is this possible, you ask? WELL, I am heavily medicated most of the time (like right now... how am I even typing?!) and anything is possible with hallucinations!

As most of you out in TV land know, I had surgery on Wednesday. Vince drove me to the hospital at 930am and I got all checked in and what not. I didn't see the doctor until around 11:30 and he said they would start at noon! Vince left at 11:30 to go prepare for my arrival at home by buying me lots of delicious soups and pizza! At noon the nurse came in to wheel me into the OR. It was weird cuz the anesthesiologist started my drip and I was like WOAH what is happening right now I am super sleepy. He asked the nurse about some puppies and then the nurse put a mask on my face. Next thing I know, Im in the recovery room and there's weird things on my legs pumping blood and stuff or at least that's what my nurse, Darrell, said. I woke up at around 1:30 PM and it was strange coming to cuz my whole body felt numb and I felt like a pile of human jelly. Eventually, Darrell gave me some ice chips and told me I could go home as soon as I had gone to the bathroom and eaten a cracker. At 2 they called Vince but he had stepped outside to do Vince stuff (work) so I didn't get released until an hour later at 3. It was interesting being in the recovery room because I was the youngest patient there by about 50 decades. It was obvious that the nurses weren't used to someone so young because when I got up to go to the bathroom (Darrell wanted me to use a bed pan YUCK) all the nurses cheered! As I was resting and waiting for Vince this dude next to me a Mr. something or other, was being drained. I dunno what that means exactly or what was being drained but through my sleepy haze I saw the nurse take a device and pour what looked like blood into a tray. EW. I don't ever wanna be drained D: The other guy in the bed in front of me (who had a super mean nurse im glad I didnt get her) had just something inserted into some part of his groin area and he said it burned to pee! Then the lady two beds over had been in the recovery room for like two hours and she still hadn't woken up! Anyway, I was finally released and I got to get wheeled out in a wheel chair, obviously, and then Vince drove me home! Hmm, now that I think about it, I never got a cracker.

The pain on my back was pretty severe. Well, I wouldn't describe it as pain more like a soreness. It hurt to move so I had to just lay down and do nothing. The first couple of days were the worst because I couldn't walk very fast and it hurt to walk so I had to be in pain every time I stood up. I also needed a lot of help getting up and laying down because yeah. Pain. I've been getting up and standing and walking as much as I can to get my back all used to it. Hmm... I lost my train of thought! Well, as of today I am able to get up and lay down with not much pain. It still hurts to sneeze, cough and laugh sometimes. You really dont know how much you use your back until it hurts to use it! For the first month and a half I wont be able to sit for more than 30 min, bend, or lift more than 10 lbs. After that I should be pretty normal ish I think. I will have to go to physical therapy to get everything in shape and what not and, if all goes well, in a few months I will be 100% better!

So the point of the surgery was to relieve the pain in my leg. Even though the problem was in my back, most of the pain I felt on a daily basis was in my leg. Sometimes, depending on how long I was sitting, the pain would go from my hip to my ankle, at other times it was just my ankle. My back would only hurt if I was bending over for a long time like if I was cleaning or sitting on the floor working on super secret art projects while Vince was at work. Im not really sure if Im in less pain because Im taking more medicine or if its because my back is healing.

The incision on my back is pretty small, just about an inch or so. I dunno how they closed it up. I feels kind of hard back there so I dunno if I have stitches or what. Alls I know is that it gets itchy sometimes and I have to try super hard not to scratch it!! I hope I get a cool scar back there. An epic battle scar.

Thanks to everyone who has come over and helped me and kept me company. It's been nice seeing you all! And Im super grateful to Vince for keeping me fed and hydrated! I guess Im also glad Nimbus is here keeping my tummy warm by sleeping on me.

It's nice to be off of work for two weeks. I was kind of nervous at first because I havent taken a vacation in about 10 years! So I didnt know how I was gonna react to all this freedom. But thanks to the medicine im taking, which makes me not think of anything except how I can feel the earth spinning and wonder why my teeth are marshmallows, I havent really had to stress out about not having anything to do. I dunno if any of this makes sense. Ive been typing for what feels like days but I guess its only been a few hours. What?? Im gonna go watch some Adventure Time now.

Vacation!

Well, school is official done for the spring semester! I couldn't be more glad/sad. I'm glad because I can sleep in and not worry about school work. I'm sad because now I have a lot of extra time and I'm not going to know what to do with it!

In a week I will be going in for surgery! If you follow my blog, and I don't know who wouldnt cuz it's oh so funny, then you know about my back and how it's all broken and what not. Basically, I have a herniated disk in my spine and it's soooo big that it's pinching some nerves which cause my left leg (from my hip to my ankle) hurt. Not only that, but I am unable to sit for an extended period of time, I can't run, exercise, stretch or pretty much exist without being in pain. I had cortisone injections right into the disk twice which was supposed to make the disk shrink I guess, but it didnt. The pain in my leg was lessened considerably which made me oh so happy! But my movement is still restricted and if I move around a lot my back and leg will start to hurt. The worst pain was when I had to sit for a long time, like when I was in class for 6 hours a day! At the end of the day I was in SO MUCH PAIN. Can you imagine? Not being able to SIT?? But after the shots it got better, thank goodness!!

Anyway, the only other thing to do is go in for a discectomy. What that means is that the doctor (who is SUPER HAWT) is gonna cut my back open and shave off (his words) part of the herniated disk stuffs, so the stuff that is hitting my nerve. By getting rid of that extra material, my nerves will be free to do their nervy thing and my leg will hopefully stop hurting and I'll be able to stretch any which way I want! The surgery is scheduled for Wednesday 23 as 11:30 AM. It's an outpatient procedure unless there are complications and hopefully there wont be! I've been to so many doctors in the past week and a half getting all sorts of different tests. I still need to go to a couple more appointments before surgery on Wednesday. I'm kind of freaking out about surgery because I hate going to the doctor...I guess if I had gone to the doctor the first time my back hurt I wouldnt be in this situation... BUT, after a lot of freaking out I think I'm more anxious than nervous about it... but it's still scary! The first week after surgery I wont be able to sit at all. So I will be chillin on the couch being awesome. I wont be able to sit for more than 20 minutes at a time for a month. A FULL recovery takes about 3 months (there's physical therapy involved and junk), so after that I will be able to move any which way I want and do back flips and all that noise.

The past couple of weeks have been great because I'm kind of trying to squeeze in a lot of adventures before surgery. Because I will be bed ridden for a while and OH YEAH Im gonna miss like three weeks of work!!! That part is pretty exciting! But yeaaaah. It's been a fun couple of weeks, and the last day of my pre surgery awesomeness will be Tuesday D:

WELL, here are some pics of the stuffs I've been doing!!

Sitting on the couch (I love this pic!)

Disneyland (on the carousel) 

Dinner at Oceanside Pier

We saw surfing dolphins!

Dodgers game with Joanne THANKS JOANNE!

The Blind Side on the BIG SCREEN

Angels game (they lost :(

Chocolate fondue and champagne to celebrate the end of the semester!

And that's about it for now. It really feels like, for the first time since i was in high school, I'm going to have a for real real, not for play play, vacation. 2-3 weeks of no work or school. Just me, doing absolutely NOTHING. I will enjoy it as much as I can!!!