Why I Stayed in the Hospital So Long

One note about why I stayed in 5 days and not the 2 days Dr. Poddatoori said I'd be experiencing.

1. She said "2 days" before the results of the PET CT Scan and the pathologist's report (during the actual surgery) were in. A small, laparoscopic surgical incision just wasn't in the cards for me.

2. One of the anesthesias was making me nauseous. It was either the stuff they gave me, a general anesthesia, during surgery, which took some time to work its way out of my system, or it was the drip they had me on in the hospital room. They put me on dilaudid instead of morphine for the first few days in the room. The RN and doctors figured out eventually that that choice made me nauseous. They had obviously made the choice to give me more pain relief after such heavy-duty surgery, as dialudid is seven times stronger than morphine.

I threw up on the 2nd day of hospitalization, and was in danger of doing so the next two days after that. Once the switch was made to morphine, it took a full day to bring me back. But that nausea meant I couldn't eat and I couldn't even have liquids or ice chips. That will certainly slow down the normalcy of your stomach and intestines.

It's alimentary, my dear Watson.