Still plugging along...ten days post-op!

Jan 23, 2009

Still having trouble getting the protein in, but some ideas from a couple of friends should help. I've got a little less than a week before I can move on to Stage 3 of the post-op diet...never thought I'd be so excited for pureed foods!!!

It's hard to know how much I can eat/drink at one time safely. I spoke with the nurse practitioner and she said I can do more than the one ounce over fifteen minutes, but I'm afraid to go too far. I may be underestimating the amount I can drink at once. She said just to stop before I am "full", but I'm not sure I'll know. I mean, obviously if I throw up due to consuming too much at once I'll know, but I'm not willing to push it that far to test it out!!!

I've been doing well at getting out and walking every day. I'm trying to do just a bit more each day. I need to remember to bring my cell phone or some other device with the time on it with me...ooh, the ipod! I don't know why I didn't think of that until just now. That way I can add a couple of minutes at a time. I want to be very careful not to go too far too fast, but I don't want to get complacent, either. I've been walking fast enough and far enough to get a little out of breath and get my heart beating at a good rate, but stopping before I'm exhausted. I can't believe how tired I still am!

I also bought some children's tylenol today...actually Target brand children's liquid acetaminophen. Yay Target! I don't know if it will do much, but I had a terrible headache yesterday. I still have some of the liquid Lortab left, but that's overdoing it quite a bit for a headache, so I just endured it. Hopefully this acetaminophen will help with little things like that.

I still have some post-op pain. I don't understand how people DON'T. I don't know if they mean the pain just isn't that bad, or if  they mean literally they have NO PAIN after surgery! I've suffered from chronic pain for years and I'd think I could endure a fair amount, but I definitely have pain. It gets so much better each day, though. It's a lot easier to get up out of bed and get up out of chairs than it has been, and again, gets better each day.

The pain is more just a dull soreness throughout my abdomen now, with more of a burning in two spots - one is the area around the incision to the far right, near the drain site, and the other is the one to the far left, where most of my bruising is. The far right area burning/pain is likely due to the torn sutures, and the other is the spot where I had been told would be most painful, so it's no surprise. Again, it's really not that bad at all. I haven't used any of the rx pain medication for days now, so I'm happy about that.

The one thing I'm concerned about right now is that one area of one of my incisions is redder than the others, and looks maybe a bit puffy where the staples go in to the skin. It's the belly button incision, and the outside couple of staples feel more itchy and painful than any other incision spots. They're definitely redder than any other areas. It's not the entire incision, just that end. I'm concerned that it is getting infected. It is right where my waistband hits, so maybe it's just irritation from that. There are no red streaks going out from it, or the "foul-smelling discharge" (yikes!!)  that they say to look for, but there is a bit of clear discharge. Ugh. I may be worrying for nothing. If I lived in Sacramento I'd go have it checked out  for sure, but who wants to drive three hours for what is probably nothing? Maybe my primary care doc can check it out. She's not a surgeon, but surely she can recognize signs of infection.

Anyway! It's still going okay. Just plugging along, trying to push fluids and protein and nasty-tasting crushed medication as much as possible. When I get frustrated or start feeling borderline depressed (what's THAT about? I should be HAPPY ALL THE TIME BECAUSE THE SURGERY'S DONE!) I just remind myself that at least I'm not in the hospital. At least I'm not having horrible allergic IV pain meds reactions. And at least there's NO CATHETER.   :)    All really good things!

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