A week of recovery

After the taxi ride home on Friday, I thought I was going to die. Well, that’s a bit dramatic, but it was a bumpy ride home and it didn’t feel good. I got home and was happy to be there. I had a new diet (no grains, diary, or pasta) and had to adjust to that. The whole week I had toast and an apple for breakfast and for lunch and dinner some sort of mix of cooked veggies and chicken. I had popsicles and rice cakes too. Luckily Elizabeth is a very good cook and made my bland food interesting.
Friday my Grandpa Vincent had hip replacement surgery. It was his first time admitted into a hospital in his entire life. He wasn’t even born in a hospital! When I got home on Friday afternoon I had a message from Paul that read, “I called Grandpa this morning before his surgery and we decided that it’s very typical of you to try and steal the spotlight and attention away from him the day before his surgery.” True, I thought, very true.


The pretty flowers that the girls brought me.

Friday my incisions didn’t hurt that much but my shoulders and ribs did from the surgery when they had to inflate my abdomen. I slept really well on Friday night because of the effects of the anesthesia. Saturday was better on the pain level than Friday. I felt my incisions and exhausted. I woke up at 9, after 11 hours of sleep, and then took a nap from 2 to 5.
Around 7 a few girls came over to talk and see me. All day Saturday there was an ISA excursion to El Tigre, a place outside of Buenos Aires where there’s a beach. The girls told me that they bought me a cherry tomato plant (instead of flowers), but ended up giving it away to someone because they realized that I can’t eat cherry tomatoes (because of the gastritis) and that I wouldn’t be able to take it home with me.
The Jessie from Kentucky stayed after the other girls left to hang out. While talking to her, I put a lot of things in perspective.
1. This happened at the perfect time, if it had to happen at all. I have been busy every single weekend this semester, from Mexico, to Peru, to Argentina. The weekend before the surgery I went to Iguazu Falls, which was my only big trip in Argentina.
2. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. My ovary could have been detached from my fallopian tube. I could have broken my foot or leg or arm. If I would have done any of those things I would have need a lot more help recovering and doing things like going to the bathroom, showering, eating, or going up stairs.
3. There was nothing I could have done about it. Nothing at all. If I had gone to the doctor right when I was feeling bad, I still would have had surgery. It would have happened the same way. I had been to the doctor within four months and there was nothing wrong then. I had felt faint pains or soreness in that area a few times before, but I ignored it because it didn’t bother me for long. So, there was nothing I could do.
This whole experience has made me so much more chill about everything. Everyone can’t believe how I reacted to having surgery in a place where I didn’t completely speak the same language as my doctor, in a place that may or may not have the same standards as U.S. hospitals (the hospital I was in was nicer than any hospital I’ve ever been to in the United States.
Sunday I hung out most of the day and talked to my family who was all together for the Vincent Family Thanksgiving. The only two people who were not there for the Vincent Family Thanksgiving were Paul and me.
On Monday I decided I was well enough to go to school. I woke up at 5 because I couldn’t sleep anymore and hung out around the house until 9:30 when I caught a taxi to school. It was the first time I had been outside since I got home from the hospital. Everyone was surprised to see me and I had to explain to my professor what happened over the weekend. I was walking like a grandma and sitting down like a pregnant woman. It was entertaining.
When class started the professor asked the class if they had done anything fun this weekend. It was generally decided that I didn’t have the best weekend. It was difficult for me to sit in the room for three hours even thought I got up every half-hour or so. The teacher then told me I could take the professors’ elevator. The elevator that all the students take only goes up ever 7 floors and then you walk up or down to whatever floor you need. The professors’ elevator goes to every floor. That’s pretty special if you ask me. I was walking around hunched over because it hurt to stand up and shuffling along, taking steps one at a time with both feet, and explaining to people I knew what had happened.
I spent the afternoon at the house and Emily came over in the afternoon to watch the pirated movie Sex and the City.
Tuesday I missed the morning class and went to the afternoon class. I dread this class. Well, it’s not so much the class, it’s the professor and the way she presents the material to us and carries herself. I can’t find a good part of the class; I simply don’t like it. I was talking to my mom about it and I said the only good thing was that I had nine classes left because there are three weeks left. My mom then informed me that my dad was leaving two weeks from Saturday for Chile. Even better, I said, I only have six classes and two weeks! The pain on Tuesday was different from Monday. The place where my IV was started to hurt, like it was bruised, and I think I did something in the night on Monday to my stomach because the incision in my belly button hurt a lot.
Wednesday I went to the morning class. I had to give a presentation I wasn’t really prepared for, but it went all right. I went home after the first class and missed the second class because I had to prepare for the night’s activity of...a…Michael Bublé concert!
It was really exciting. I’ve never been a huge fan of Bublé but I’ve always enjoyed his stuff. I almost went to his concert in Grand Rapids but tickets were $100, here they were $30. I couldn’t pass that up.


Teryn is rollin' in the dough!



A group of 8 of us went out to dinner and then to the concert. Michael Bublé has a more profane mouth than I thought he would. This could be because he was in an auditorium of 3,500 people, most of whom didn’t speak English. His English was also really weird. He was speaking English all in the present tense, like a foreigner who is learning English would speak it. It was all in good fun. I was really tired by the end of the night. My incisions were really hurting and I couldn’t participate in the concert as much as I would have liked to like standing up and sitting down multiple times.
It’s been a week of recovery and emotions.