Observations at 3 weeks

We can count on nothing if not the passage of time. The solid Ticks and Tocks clunk ever forward, even if you feel reluctant to follow.
Time makes everything better because it brings change. One way or another things are different.
This road is slow and I only realise now how fast I used to like to live. On the bright side, our dog has never been happier than to have a cuddle captive audience.

These are my changes over the last few weeks:

The terror and anxious nervousness of waiting for and leading up to the surgery is like a fuzzy memory of distant, much despised acquaintances. That hated ex-boss, the looming dark cloud in your sunny sky, the person that always said the wrong things at the right times. Gone and never again to be suffered through, encountered or invited to your picnic again.

At the beginning of week 3 – with the help of a wedge pillow – I transitioned for the first time from the rented recliner to my own bed. The bliss generated by this step towards normalcy is difficult to summarise. My sleep improved and so did my mood. Sleep and Mood are soul mates in a long-term relationship; don’t underestimate their commitment to each other.

I no longer feel like the way a jacket looks when you throw it on the bed. The feelings of debilitating weakness and exhausted resignation are slowly improving everyday. My body is getting stronger as my heart approves of her new functionality and sweet beats with her new valve friend.

February is the shortest month this leap year and the frozen pangs of winter are being defeated with every passing day and hour. Recuperating and not having to go outside in the Canadian month of February is not the worst of predicaments. I have reframed my mindset to know that with spring approaches my fully recovered health.

Losing your routine and temporary independence is deflating to the ego and mind. And simply knowing day in and day out that you need to carry on, can make you feel like carrion. Patience, adaptability and faith. I realise now how very low I kept my reserves of those. This experience is teaching me to stockpile like a hyperactive squirrel in the fall. I have made new routines; they started off at kindergarten levels of simplicity and advanced with each day. Avoid daytime TV with the absolute exception of watching Ellen. If you are convalescing don’t skip out on catching the Ellen show – that shit is like candy for the soul.

I have not been able to get too much use out of my incision shield yet, but the cat thinks it is totally fascinating.

I have learned how to get out of bed by myself. I can inch up the wedge and with folded arms get my legs anchored under the blankets (or gently tucked under the fat sleeping cat) and do a slow and controlled sit up. It stings and burns like swallowing a shot of pepper spray but the independence of not having to be helped to get out of bed, for the first time in so many weeks, is a thing of utter encouragement. No need to wake up the household just to pee at 2am, f@ck that noise, this gal can move.

I can navigate the shower now without help and even through I checked my pride at the door at the beginning of this experience, it’s wonderful to be able to clean your own toes and arse again.

I have gotten my pain meds down from 4-6 hourly to 7, 9 and once even 12 hourly, as I slept though the night without waking to take my dose. Progress! I fully blame this on the fact that HydroMorphone is totally boring and for me at least is non-habit forming, it simply gets rid of pain. I still have gratuitous amounts of discomfort but only when I do anything that engages, rotates, flexes or otherwise manipulates the chest and ribs. So pretty much any arm or torso bending movements. The broken bones will take 6-8weeks to heal and pain receptors are happy to remind my overzealous ambitious youth of this fact.

And lastly my scar is coming along pretty well (but that is a whole other post by itself) the top 3″ is still a bit angry, open and slower to heal. Mum says it’s because the skin is getting pulled down on account of my ample bosom. I told her to shut up.