this should have just been a bullet post
I have spent all my time this week doing just a couple of things - healing, sleeping, and trying to catch up on work. Healing is going well, the other two? Meh.
I’m a stomach sleeper. Always have been. I hate, hate, hate sleeping on my back. Needless to say I can’t sleep on mah belly right now. Or even my side. So I don’t sleep much at all really. Kinda stinks since sleep is what I need the most right now.
Work is tough because I just feel so overwhelmed by how much I need to get done, and yet my brain, she cannot focus. Big bad cycle that is.
Thank god for good friends who have taken my boy for playdates a few days this week. Especially Kristen who had him from 8am to 5pm yesterday. I really needed that. Like desperately.
Speaking of desperation. Damon leaves for another business trip tomorrow. Early Saturday am to late Thursday pm. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to manage.
I can’t even drive yet but I’m hoping to feel up to it in the next couple of days. I’m off all the pain killers so I’m allowed, yet my stomach muscles just don’t feel right and I don’t know what my reaction time would be if I had to slam on the brakes or something.
I still have nothing (no really) to wear to BlogHer and shopping this weekend is out of the question. Next weekend my home girl Nicole is going to drive me around and carry my bags so I can at least get something cute to wear. That hopefully fits. (Good lord, Tim Gunn is going to be at BlogHer Saturday so I need one good outfit!)
My body is so strange right now. I’ve lost an additional 7 lbs due to my all-liquid-all-the-time diet in the hospital. (Not including the 15 lbs of IV fluid gain/loss too.) However, my stomach feels very swollen and I can’t yet button the size I was in before I went into the hospital. That really stinks. I’m hoping the swelling goes down before I need to try on clothes.
The good news is that extra 7 lbs - if it stays off - brings me to a grand total of 34 pounds lost. (Okay so yesterday I subtracted in my head and it was 39. I’m going with 34 but it might really be 39 - I’m losing track of where I started.)
Thirty freaking four pounds. I’ve never been this committed, not ever. Now I just have to get past this little gallbladder hurdle and get back on track. Well, in about five more weeks that is. I do worry that as I feel better my appetite will come back I will put some pounds back on while I can’t exercise. Worry, worry.
Sorry this post was so random! I just looked back and it’s just a jumble, but I’m going to leave it that way, because that’s just where my head is at this moment. I shoulda just done bullets.
xoxo
it’s good to be home
I am home at last. I napped in the guest bed because I couldn’t get comfortable in my own. Too soft I think. It hurts more to lie down than sit but I do need some sleep. I don’t know how well I will do tonight but it has to be better than being in the hospital.
My boy and my man are falling over themselves to help me. Josh brings me pillows where ever I sit so I can prop up my arms and my back. He likes to be needed and he’s great at fetching. Damon is in the doting phase. Don’t go up the stairs without telling me. Do you need something to eat/drink? Did you take your drugs. Where are you going to sleep? I’m not sure he likes to be needed so much, but he’s pretty good at it.
Everyday has to just get better from here, and I expect I won’t blog about it so much from here out. Even I’m a bit bored by my blog. ;) Of course the only other thing to talk about is omg how far behind I am in work now that I’ve lost an entire week! Let’s not acknowledge that yet though. Let’s stay in blissful ignorance of the looming paperwork.
Okay, changing subject, so at least one of you admitted to wanting to see some staples. Heh. I will set it up so those of you who don’t want to don’t have to! If you’re in a feed reader or you’ve already clicked over the to the actual post instead of the main page there’s nothing I can do to help you on this one - just stop scrolling right now! Click Read More below to continue reading and to see the photo. If you’re grossed out by that I’ll say good bye here. ;)
giggle analgesic
I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday. It was, in many ways, a pretty good day and full of distractions - the best one being my sister.
I was seen by my surgeon’s PA late in the morning. She was awesome. She did pull the big honkin’ bandage off of my abdomen and I got my first glimpse of the train tracks on my belly. Well, shit.
I have the small incisions from where they tried to do the laparoscopic procedure as well as the long incision across the top of the stomach towards the right where they had to open me up. Who wants a pic? Hubby votes no, I shouldn’t publish one and Caro votes yes, I should. She’s seen it and didn’t faint so I’m leaning towards her side. Damon will probably never willingly see it anyway! If y’all want to see a photo I swear I’ll post one.
I lost count at 32 staples. Lost the count only because I can’t really see them all from my perspective. But still, that’s a lot of staples. These aren’t the kind you use to hold a few pieces of paper together either. These look like the kind that you build your freaking house with. Yikes. I only remember having 10 or 12 staples with my c-sec. It’s hard to believe, but this surgery was more invasive than that one was.
In any case I was also cleared for…dun dun dun…a shower! Just in time for my sister to get here. Did you know they actually saran wrap your IV to keep it dry? I had one arm completely covered and I couldn’t even bend my elbow, but still, I got a shower! There is nothing better when you’ve gone for days without one. I would take a shower over food at this point. Good thing too, since I haven’t actually had food yet. Broth is good, broth is gooood, broth is gooooooood. ~sigh~
In any case, laughter is really good medicine and I hit the real pain meds less often because I had snickers and snorts for my anesthetic all day and into the night. Yes, she even slept over in my room and put up with all the many noises and interruptions that come with nighttime in the hospital.
Hopefully today will bring more good news. I might get off the IV. Maybe the staples can come out - I don’t know if they do that before they release me or at a follow-up visit. (I know with my c-sec they were pulled on day 3 but it’s hard to judge by that.) Maybe I’ll finally even fart. That I definitely have to do before I can bust outta here! Sheesh.
I really don’t know if I can go home today or tomorrow, no one is ready to say. But I’ll let you all know as soon as I find out.
Thank you again for all of your well wishes and I’m sorry I don’t have anything else to talk about! I hope everyone had a fantastic Fourth of July. (I got to see Nashua’s fireworks display right out my window last night!) It’s okay to tell me if you went to a bbq, I don’t mind living vicariously! xoxo
slowly, slowly
I am healing. But just very slowly. I know that I am a little better today than I was yesterday. I know tomorrow I will be a little better than I was today.
Tomorrow they take off the humongous itchy bandage and check the incisions and staples. It most definitely hurts but I am walking a fine balance wire of pain meds versus handling the pain. I still have dilauded on the little clicker that I control. That means I can keep clicking once every 15-20 minutes and keep the pain at bay all day long if I want. But that comes with price - it makes me uncontrollably sleepy. I would never be able to leave the bed.
Getting up and walking around is the only way to make the healing go faster. It’s the only part of this I can control. So I forgo the meds when I can in order to stay mobile and lucid. When I can’t take the pain anymore I click that sucker, take a nap for awhile, then do it all over again in an hour or two.
I still have not had any real food. Just jello, popsicles, and juice. Funny thing is, I’m not really hungry. The only thing I crave is a shower. Maybe tomorrow after the incision check? I can only hope.
Also tomorrow, my sister Carolyn comes to visit me - overnight even! It’s good, because I can tell that as I’m feeling better I’m getting antsy about being here so very long and I’ll need the distraction. The only bad thing about her visiting is that when we are together we tend to giggle like a couple of crazy loons and oh, does it ever hurt to laugh right now!
More tomorrow. xoxo
I just need to whine a little
Edited to add: Sometimes whining does the trick - I feel much better today and I’m still alternating hot and cold so it continues to heal. Yay - no doctor for me this time!
My neck hurts! Wah! I don’t know what I did but I guess I pulled a muscle on Wednesday afternoon. That’s when it started bothering me. While I was sitting on the couch. So yeah, I have no idea what happened.
Every day I wake up and think ‘well surely it’ll be better today.’ But it’s not.
It started spasming this afternoon so I’m alternating between cold packs and heating pads now. I’m very certain I overdid it yesterday by going to the Boston BlogHer BBQ (more on that soon - but it was so worth going!) If it’s not better tomorrow I think I’ll have to go to the doc. Ugh.
I don’t want to drag this out like I did with my back in February but I also hate to go in to only have them tell me either to keep doing what I’m doing and it will heal, or that I need PT again which is so expensive. (It falls under my deductible and I do have a pretty big deductible to meet, again, ugh.)
Anyway, I just needed to whine a little. Thanks for listening peeps. xo
ps. Damon finally gets home late tonight. It’s been a really really really long week. And we get to do it all over again next month. Triple ugh.
at least it’s not broken ribs!
~Sigh~
Here’s the update on my appointment for my back: the good news is I have a physical therapy appointment tomorrow morning to figure out the best plan of action, the bad news is it’s an injury that takes some time to heal and muscle relaxants won’t really help so we’re not trying that now. What I’ve done is pulled the muscle that runs underneath my shoulder blade. It’s one of those muscles that connects to everything and when it spasms it pulls on all of my rib muscles and constricts my lungs like a tight band - which is why it hurts to breathe.
It’s also a muscle that never gets a chance to rest - hence the long healing time. It’s used with every breath I take, every move I make. Heh. Yeah, I’m never too down to make bad puns! And HEY, I don’t have any broken ribs! w00t!! You know me: always glass half-full. :)
The only time it feels okay is when I’m lying on a heating pad or in the shower. Unfortunately I can’t do either of those all day long! As it was I went to bed at 6:30 last night because I just could not take it anymore. I seriously don’t know how people function with chronic untreatable pain. Seriously. I’ve taken my mobility for granted.
oh my aching back
Somewhere around 4 weeks ago we had one of those storms that’s part snow, part sleet, part freezing rain. It was 5 or 6 inches of that crud, icy, messy, and super heavy. The storm didn’t end until around dark, when we all traipsed out into the cold and started cleaning up the driveway. DH always does the snow blowing while I shovel the front porch and the area right in front of the garage where it’s hard to get to with the snow blower.
The boy was playing on the mountains of snow, and DH was near the mailbox when I slipped on a hidden patch of ice and went down. I was more embarrassed than anything, hoping no one saw me fall. I hit on the right side of my back/shoulder/arm. The only thing that hurt right away was my wrist, but the next day I felt it in my shoulder and back too - right around my ribs.
I really didn’t think anything of it at the time - just something to get over. A week later we had 10 more inches of snow, and silly me thought I felt good enough to shovel again. It flared up that night. A week later, some idiot pulled out in front of me and I had to slam on my brakes to avoid him. Thank god I wasn’t speeding and we were on a 30mph road. It normally wouldn’t have been a big deal, but of course, I tensed up and my back and neck felt even worse.
Did I go to the doctor at that point? Of course not! I though I would just have to get over it!
Uh. No. I’m still not over it. In the last few days I’ve been having back spasms. Like a charley horse around my rib cage. When it happens it hurts to even breathe. I had hoped that exercise would help, but it hasn’t. It hasn’t made it worse, but certainly not better. Neither has heat, or cold, or laying still, or anything else. It happens randomly, certainly not all the time, but often enough to make me mad.
I’ve never been one to have back problems, or any other chronic pain. Now have an inkling what it’s like for people who do, and I don’t like it one bit. So off to the doctor I go - my appointment is in about an hour. Hopefully it’s nothing that can’t be helped with a script for a muscle relaxant. I won’t think about anything worse. Fingers crossed.