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The Quick Road to Recovery
I think I might be part super hero. I’m almost healed from my surgery already. Or maybe it’s just a really easy surgery. I was so worried that I would be doubled over in pain for days. I thought for sure I’d be in bed for a week. I was freaking out about taking pain killers and drugging Baby Bug through my breast milk. I even asked the anesthesiologist if I could skip the pain killers and he shook his head, no. “No way,” he said. “You’re going to need those pain killers for a good while.” And he looked like he meant business. He was wielding the long sharp needles after all. I figured he knew his stuff.
But he was wrong! Ha! Ha hah! I haven’t taken a single pain pill! Toby picked up my months worth prescription of vicodin and I’m not going to take one pill! I hardly hurt at all. You know how they have that zero-to-ten pain scale where ten is the pain of having a baby and zero is no pain at all? Well, I barely got up to a three. A measly three! Nothing that three advil won’t take care of in a jiffy.
I admit I’m uncomfortable though. My right shoulder hurts sometimes (a strange side effect they told me might happen.). My back aches because I’m using different muscles to avoid using my abdominal muscles and I don’t feel like I can take a deep breath properly. It’s the breathing that’s bothering me the most but it’s not really painful. Just annoying. Oh yeah, and I can’t laugh. So don’t send me any joke emails. Cause I won’t read them. Of course Toby has been making me laugh all day which is fun but hurts.
I gave myself quite a scare in the shower this morning. I was trying to wash all the orange iodine off my body parts (that stuff won’t come off) and I inadvertently let some water splash on my bandages. You’re not really supposed to get them really wet but I was a bit careless. Well, suddenly blood started oozing out and down my abdomen. Blood! My insides are coming out!!!! Oh no! I’m never going to heal! I thought. I was so scared that I quick hopped out of the shower and never completely washed the shampoo out of my hair. I’ve been walking around all day with half washed hair. It’s not a look I’m proud of.
So anyway, unless I’m jinxing myself by being so proud of the lack of pain, I think I’m doing fine. Finey fine fine. Isn’t it weird that you can take a body part out and everything seems to continue to work? In fact I’ve eaten some foods with fat in them today and nothing sent me to the bathroom. I had a bagel with cream cheese this morning (CREAM CHEESE!!) and house special chicken from Pick-Up-Stix (CHICKEN WITH FAT!!!) this afternoon. Those aren’t exactly fat free healthy meals. But nothing happened. I’m good as new. This is really really strange. I’m just waiting for the pipes to work and I end up in the bathroom hating life.
I’m just really really thankful that everything is working out. Maybe it’s all the well wishers from this blog. Maybe you guys are magic. I think that’s it. So you deserve a big fat THANK YOU. I really needed to get better quick and all your comments and good thoughts and prayers worked. So far so good. And it’s a good thing too because you all know what it’s like to take care of a nine month old. My mom left today and I’m going to miss her.
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Happy Halloween!
Here are some scary pictures that will put you in the mood for Halloween. I’m home convalescing. The surgery went fine. I was scared to death that I wouldn’t wake up again, but sure enough I woke up and I seem to be doing fine. The nurses even said I looked better than most patients do coming out of surgery–health wise. I guess I’m pretty healthy and I’m going to snap right out of this in no time. Good thing too because Baby Bug is not liking the new no-nursing and no-mommy arrangement AT ALL. Poor thing. Thankfully my mom is here and Grandma is the next best thing when it comes to being rocked to sleep. My mom is the best. She sings when she rocks and then Baby Bug sings too. It’s the sweetest thing.
So far I think the hardest thing about this surgery is hearing her cry and want me and not being able to do a single thing about it. I put a pillow over my incisions and tried to hold and cuddle her but it just wasn’t good enough. She whined and carried on something else. The anesthesia narcotics should wear off by noon tomorrow so depending on how bad vicodin is for babies, I should be able to let her nurse tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll have super duper pain tolerance and be able to get by on tylenol. I don’t know. It’s hard to gage right now because I’m still flying pretty high on whatever they gave me.
In fact, other than a horrible case of hiccups that hurt like crazy, I’m feeling pretty good. It’s weird. Kinda surreal. Like maybe it’s too good to be true. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. It’s probably too early to be celebrating a quick recovery. I’m trying to be careful and not twist or turn or pull anything. I really want to get better quick and not end up in bed for days.
One good thing about being in bed is that I get to play on my computer! I haven’t had my computer to myself without the baby climbing up on my chair and begging to be picked up so she can bang on my keyboard in ages! Uninterrupted computer time! Wow! This is kinda cool. If only I didn’t feel so lightheaded and woozy.
But I’m not too woozy to upload the pictures we took the other day at the pumpkin patch. It was a really fun family outing–just Toby and I and the baby. She doesn’t seem very happy in the pictures but that is because the sun was really bright and my daughter is very good at scowling. She’s my little “scowl-ly wag”
I wanted to carve the pumpkin tonight but I think I’m just going to have to give up on that idea. I think carving or bending or walking around is off limits. And ouch! The hiccups are back. %$# hiccups!
