Recovery is Hard Work!

As many of you know (especially my FB friends who have listened to me whine for the past few weeks) I had surgery in April. It wasn't life or death surgery, but it was quality of life surgery and it needed to happen. It also came with four weeks for recovery.

Yay for four weeks off work....or not so much because I'm very type A and very much a control freak when it comes to my day job. I feel no shame in admitting that.

So, recovery...yeah...it's been hard. I underestimated how hard it would be. I mean, I knew I'd be in pain but I really, really didn't think about all the things that could/would happen. The surgery went well, I stayed for a night in the hospital, which did not go well...I had this roommate who was the spawn of Satan. When someone else was in the room, like a nurse's aid (not the nurses, they pretty much saw what I saw) or her relatives visiting, she was this sweet little old lady...but when they were gone she was horrible. She tried to engage me repeatedly in conversation by moaning about what a crappy hospital it was and how horrible the nurses were...lady, I just had surgery...ouch, be quiet...and when I didn't respond, she would bring her walker over and ram it into my bed to get my attention...which usually meant she'd wake me up. That night...oh man....that night she set up camp in the chair next to my bed and SNORED like a fucking I-DON'T-KNOW-WHAT-BUT-IT-WAS-LOUD!!! In the chair, next to my bed, for two hours!!! (I tried calling a nurse for help but I guess they were busy...no judgement...)

When I finally escaped and came home I actually stopped taking the pain meds that were prescribed...why???? Well, because I wasn't feeling any pain...hahahahaha...no pain....I was even shocked about how little pain I was feeling and did some day job work...lots of it (I'm sure I'll hear stories about how coherent I actually was at that time). I did some writing too...and finished off a proposal for a publisher. Lots of important things happened in that time. I feel I should not be held accountable probably. ;-)

And then the pain came...oh boy, it came. And it was bad....it was really fucking bad...and I got super scared that I was getting an infection...so I went to the ER and basically balled my way to the front of the line. I'm not proud of this...crying in public...but the pain was at like a 20 on a scale of 10 and I thought my surgery was failing...the stitches were opening and it would be like the last two weeks of healing didn't happen. Seriously. lol So dramatic, I know. Anyway, I still waited a long time before I got some pain meds but I was seen by my surgeon and he felt I needed to stay and get pumped up with antibiotics...so there I was...back in the hospital...and when I arrived in my shared room, what did I see???? A WALKER! Omg....I thought I'd been cursed with another bed rammer.

Turns out that guy was quiet and left the next morning and the next lady was quiet too, so all was good in roommate land. I got lots of good drugs and we whacked that infection away after a few days. Unplanned sleepover for a couple of nights in the hospital with portion controlled meals and nothing to do but zonk out on pain meds...it wasn't that bad actually.

So I got out, went home and pain, pain, pain...mega pain all week...got the green light to go back to work in a week and suddenly the pain is gone...vanished...weird, I know. And now I'm just exhausted...like three naps a day and at least eight hours a night exhausted.

At some point I have to drive. I have a week to get myself sorted...with a long weekend coming, so that's good.

Recovery has really kinda sucked. I've had a lot of folks checking in with me though and that's been lovely. My husband has been taking care of me, getting me peanut buster parfaits on demand...he's a good man, and reassuring me when I think I'm dying....recovery means a lot of crying apparently. lol

I have gotten some work done...that I'm sure is just fine...and makes sense...probably. I'm off the pain meds almost completely and have much hope that my quality of life will continue to improve.

It's been an adventure...an unwanted, unpleasant kind of adventure but maybe it'll show up in my next project in some way...keep your eyes open for a walker.

Mwuahahahahaha!