Recovering (AKA Humor is Everything)

It seems to be a long and dark road back to health, and I really regret now not fully understanding how lucky I was to have good health for the most part of my life until now. I had surgery on December 21, 2010, yep 4 days before Christmas. I had a gracilus muscle flap procedure, sphincterplasty, and now have a temporary colostomy that has haunted my days and nights for the last 2 months. I went into the hospital on Dec 14, fully prepared to have a 3-7 day hospital stay and a 2-3 month recovery. I had been on a liquid only diet for two days, and drank bottles of nasty juice that caused all of my insides to cramp while I lived on the toilet. I barely made it to the hospital without multiple accidents of the Depends variety. I cracked jokes with the nurses as they put the lovely compression fitting thigh high stockings on, and got to experience the humiliation of sitting off the edge of the gurney, letting my 41 year old tummy that had carried 5 babies to term "all hang out" so the colostomy nurse could put an x on a "good spot" just in case it was decided I needed a colostomy. It was a 50/50 thing at that point. I was in favor of the 50% that said there was no way I could wake up and have my colon coming out of my stomach and draining into a bag. I met with everyone that was on my surgical team, kissed my hubby goodbye, and had a very Que Sera Sera attitude at that point, I'd already prayed, contemplated death, been full of fear, wished I'd done everything differently, celebrated everything I'd accomplished, longed for a vacation, the whole gamut of emotions and I figured if anything, at least when I woke up, it was going to be over, one way or the other, and I could focus on recovering at that point, (or haunting everyone I loved if the good Lord had decided in that direction.)
I recall the anesthesiologist telling me about his recent vacation to South America, telling me it was a great adventure, and that I wouldn't remember a thing he was saying when I woke up. He said he would have me count down from 100, but I'd never get past 95 so I might as well start with 7, so I began the count down "7, 6, 5..."
I woke up in the brightly light operating room. The clock on the wall showed that either 13 hours had gone by, or only 1. The surgery was scheduled to take around 7 hours, so something was up. I didn't feel woozy at all, I turned and asked the anesthesiologist what was going on, he seemed surprised that I was awake enough to speak. He said the Doctor would be in to talk to me in a few minutes, she had gone to talk to my husband first because they didn't think I'd be awake this quickly. I did an assessment as I waited. No pain anywhere. Could move all my parts, and squeeze the cheeks. Either the surgery was way easier and less complicated then planned, or there was trouble.
It was trouble of course. "So once I could finally get in there and get a good look at everything, it was a lot more complicated then we'd planned on. I'm going to need a microsurgeron here with me to do the surgery." The Dr. said, still wearing her full surgical attire. "We are looking at worse case scenario now, and you will definitely have a temporary colostomy." I tried to think of questions but really couldn't. I had time off from work starting, my husband had his vacation days planned around when I would get home from the hospital and need the most help. I couldn't believe I had gone through so much fear, planning, praying, and finally resolve to wake up to....nothing? They wheeled me to a recovery room, I drank some apple juice, got dressed, was told to call to reschedule something tomorrow, put a big piece of tape over the stoma mark in my stomach and went home.
As we drove away, I felt the kind of let down you experience when you leave the casino empty handed, reeking of strange smells and disappointed. I tried to wrap my head around it as my husband Jeremy was fielding calls from friends and relatives all asking if I was out of surgery yet. His explanation starting with "Actually....and ending with "yes, well let you know as soon as we know more"