Entries Tagged as 'surgery'

Week 3 of recovery

It has now been three weeks since my surgery. I still have three more weeks away from the office, but lots of work to do at home. I can’t do much of it, so it is piling up. For the first time in my life, I am hiring a cleaning person. That will be really weird, but right now its necessary.

I found out something pretty amazing (to me, anyway). The 4 to 5 inch incision on my lower abdomen is my OUTER incision. There is another incision in my muscle wall that is about a foot long with hundreds of stitches. When I asked my doctor about it this week, she looked pretty surprised that I didn’t already know that. If I HAD known that, I likely wouldn’t have raked the yard on Saturday (and then spent the next two days in bed).

My guess is that I was told this after surgery. I was told many important things after surgery, like how to use my instant pain medication (IV system). I then spent the next 12 hours buzzing my nurse every hour asking for pain meds and she’d remind me to use the button in my left hand. I asked, “What button?” and she’d say, “The one in your left hand.” That was a really smart invention; let near-comatose patients administer their own pain meds. I also kept buzzing her for water, even though I had a cup of water sitting one foot in front of my face.

Sorry for the dearth of posts. The most exciting thing I can tell you is that Bob Barker is retiring this year. He mentions it every show. I love that show and have since I was a teen. It’s the highlight of my day, unfortunately. OK, I also like it when my family comes home. One day my brain will return, I think…

A day in the life…

Here’s my post-surgery recovery schedule:

5:30am - get up, stagger to the medicine cabinet to take pain meds because I feel like I was hit by a truck, then make coffee, eggs, toast and juice for my hubby who leaves pretty early (doing this makes me feel like I’m at least accomplishing something);

6:30am - 7:30am - make sure teens leave the comfort of their warm beds and get ready for the torture known as high school;

7:30am - 8:30am - drive teens to their respective high schools and swing by Starbucks for mommy’s morning fuel, all the while icing my belly;

8:30am - 10:00am - work from home on computer (sneaking in personal stuff, of course);

10:00am-11:00am - watch Price is Right, snack and rest;

11:00am to whenever - ice my belly, fall asleep watching a movie and wake up to some inane children’s show;

2:30pm to 4:30pm - work from home on computer, make sure something is going for supper;

5:00pm - pick up kids from baseball and/or play practice;

6:00pm to 7:00pm - rest more and ice belly more;

7:00pm - 10:30pm - watch something on television, maybe run an errand if I’ve rested all day long, do a load of laundry;

10:30pm - go to bed (again), ice belly