Back in the land of the living

Nov 28, 2009

Hi everyone!

What a crazy ride this has been! Sorry that I fell off the face of the earth, I found that I was in a bit of an anti-social mood while healing but let me rewind and fill you in on what's happening.

It has been 13 days since my second surgery (the leak repair).  When I woke up from my leak repair surgery, I felt 1000 times better than waking up from my initial surgery, and that made me feel much better about the whole process itself.  I had my surgery on a Thursday, recovered that night and on Friday, then Saturday morning I was up at about 4am pacific, showered, packed all of my things, did my purple water test (I PASSED this one lol) and Theo came from the house to the clinic to do my hair for my travels, he's so sweet!  After that they took out my drain (and can I just say...that sucked a lot! Take deep deep breaths for that one people!) and sent me off to get my xrays.  Those were done in no time and then it was off to the border and back to the San Diego Airport.  

It took about an hour and a bit to cross the border - I was glad I asked the guys to pick me up a gatorade for the trip.  I was lucky in that I didn't feel naseous or sick, just tired but I got through it all.  Because I was in a wheelchair, I sped through customs and was stuck hanging out at my gate for almost 2 hours before my flight left.  I think the most difficult thing about traveling alone is that you can't leave your bags unattended in the airport - but you can't carry them yourself.  In fact even my PURSE felt too heavy for me, so I tended to stick pretty close to the gate.  My pain was minimal, even though the clinic had cut off my pain meds at about 5am and given me no pills, I was sore but it wasn't bad.  The most annoying thing was, once you're on the plane, people tend to pull on the back of your seat to get settled or to move forward, and that tends to hurt - it's always been a pet peeve of mine though so I'm sure that didn't help.

I was lucky that I didn't have too many people seated near me and I could try to get as comfy as possible...because I was so recently in surgery, I still had all of that fluid and CO2 gathered in my gut and was bigger than I went in at, so it was definitely interesting.  On the plane, I ordered hot water with sweetner (no tea) and it definitely helped to soothe me and keep me warm.  I generally run hot on planes but I froze on the trip home so I would suggest bringing a sweater to others, in case their body reacts in the same way.

I had a layover in Minneapolis - where the NorthWest airlines people were beyond less than helpful, in fact rude until I ended up breaking down in tears and they realized that I was actually in pain and not some lazy person in a wheelchair.  Please note, if you can afford it, fly ANY OTHER AIRLINE - NorthWest has smaller seats, no radio, no movies and after my non-customer service experience with them, I will definitely be looking at alternate airlines even though they may be a bit more expensive.  

When I finally got home to Saskatoon it was almost midnight and I powered through customs and security in my wheelchair (it seems silly to do but definitely take advantage of it, your body is so tired and has been though so much, it definitely is worthwhile).  My husband was there to meet me and so was Mel and Caralee, the WeightLoss Forever ladies.  At midnight!? They came to visit and make sure I was okay - thought I looked much better than they expected.  And despite such a long day, I wasn't ready for bed, so we had everyone over to my house for tea (er..hot water and sweetner *lol*) and talked about my experience, my travels and how I was feeling.  I was sore, and found that there was still pain in my back but compared to the pain I went through earlier in the week with the leak...I can suck up anything *lol*

A few days later...I found infection in my incisions.  They weren't only weeping, I had a mini Niagara falls in my largest incision, so I was off to a walk-in clinic to get antibiotics.  At this point I was just drinking water (Fiji water of course...everything else feels like a brick in my stomach) Gatorade and lots and lots of popsicles! Cleaning my wounds everyday, I started to notice that as my ab muscle pain decreased, I found more pain in my back and especially when I took deep breaths, tried to yawn, snore...anything, I couldn't put pressure on it, lying down to sleep was impossible - so now it was time to go to ER and see what they had to say about it all.  

They gave me 4 litres of fluid (that's a 13 hour ER visit!) and some pills for pain but basically told me that I should continue to monitor my temperature.  They think all those pains were just internal bruising from my surgeries, or the beginnings of a kidney infection, so I definitely have to keep hydrated to prevent stones from happening and keep an eye on my temperature for fever.  Other than that...free to go!

At this point - my husband had to go back to work and couldn't help me with the puppies so we came up with a system - he left newspaper on the table and everytime the pup had an accident, I drop paper on it for Brian to clean up later.  Sounded great until we realized how much damage a pup can do in 10 hours.  I ended up calling my husband home early because of the smell and because I was overwhelmed, tired and in pain - it was pretty pitiful.  That was my biggest low - then it was nothing but up from there.  I've been able to slowly take on my chores again, I can bend over but slowly and the pain is defintely minimal.  Even my internal bruising is easing up and I'm feeling better that way as well.

I have been drinking fruit smoothies, Fiji water, have the occasional SF pudding, and protein shakes, we take the dogs for short walks and I have been going out shopping with friends so I'm getting myself out in the world and walking as much as I can without tiring myself out.  I start back and work and am moving myself to mushies next week so we'll see how that goes!

I had my stitches removed a few days ago - no pain at all, they look pretty good, most of the infection is gone and you can tell the healing is coming along nicely so I'm excited for that (mainly because I want to have a bath again!) Oh and I guess the thing everyone wants to hear....I AM DOWN 19 LBS! In 13 days!?! Pretty exciting stuff there!

I guess that's what you've missed so far.  I will try to write more often, now that I'm back in the real world, I'll have a lot more challenges to face and will definitely be relying on the network for tips and tricks.  So glad to be on this side of the surgery!

Lighter dayz ahead :)

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