5 week postop

Just wanted to post a quick update. Nothing too new going on other than MORE SNOW. Blah. I didn't get out this week to do my blood tests because I've been sick. Went through my whole family this stupid cold.

Other than that, I'm feeling ok. Better than the last few weeks. Actually doing more and more. I even got out to shovel the driveway and I was ok!! One more week and I'll be given permission to actually exercise and can get moving on my new summer body! I forgot to mention in my last post about my weight after my appt that I'd lost 11 lbs since I'd been there in December! That's a big cyst!! I just want to keep it off. I think once I can balance my thyroid, hopefully more will come off. We'll see once I can get those blood tests done! Hopefully this week, but we'll see.

4 weeks postop!!

This week has been a tough week. I've had some different healing aches & pains and the evenings are hard since I'm so bloated. They call it swelly belly, because the insides swell from all the walking and working out it gets. It's not quite healed yet and so it gets swollen, making me look bloated. And if I feel bloated and have even eaten dinner yet, it makes for a small dinner. I had a banana for dinner yesterday.

Today tho, I had my 4 wk checkup. No internal thankfully, just an outside look at my incision. (No internal til my 6wk checkup.) He said my incision looked great tho! I can continue to increase my activities, but still no lifting, exercise or sex. All ok with me, cuz I have no energy to do any of them. My infection seemed to have gone away - finally too. I'm doing ok overall, just little things still holding me back.

The last of those things holding me back is my thyroid. I'm having a blood test done next week to see if my thyroid is off. I think it is. But the symptoms are similar to menopause. So we'll see. I just want to feel better and better!!

3 weeks postop!

I'm slowly and surely doing better. My muscles are still sore, but not as sore as last week. Hopefully the GH is finally kickin' in. I've been on the antibiotic for quite a few days now and I still feel that ache in my bladder when I pee. If I still feel it by Monday, I'm gonna call the doc and tell him the med is not working.

I'm doing a lot more walking tho and even went out again to play with my kiddos in the 2ft of snow we got this week. Well more walk than play anyway. Probably not helping my muscles but it was fun. Kids had off school from Wed thru today due to all the snow and for it taking forever for the plows to get through our town. But that's ok by me, it was all fun! I'm still in resting mode but feeling better each day. Hoping it continues! :) Now I'm off to watch the Olympics. Go USA!!!

Sure enough I did have an infection

Bladder infection that is. I called doc earlier to let him know I was gonna reschedule my appt with this next big snowstorm coming. So now it's next Friday. But he called me right back telling me he got my urine test back and sure enough, I did have an infection. Uhm. Hello! It's been a week! I thought I was getting better, cuz it didn't hurt as bad. He still wants to treat it. So on antibiotic I go.

I'm really feeling the low GH now too. My muscles are just sore. I've been taking my GH for the last 2 weeks, but I guess my levels are so low it's gonna take awhile to get back up there. But ouch. Now that I'm walking more, I can really feel it. So I'm still moving slow due to that and my stomach. Oh well. More time is needed to recover!!

Two Weeks postop!!

I've hit a milestone for this recovery! Every 2 weeks it gets better and better. And I can definitely tell that I'm getting better. I'm walking more and am now doing stairs more! Last night was my first night in my own bed. Before then I stayed downstairs in our den, where our sofa bed was. I still felt like I tossed & turned a lot, but I slept ok. I'm still having crying jags here and there, but overall I think I'm doing good. I know this is a long recovery in the overall, but I'll take every little bit I can. I have an appt with my gyno this week so he can see how I'm doing. Hope he thinks I'm doing well too! :)

Happy Birthday to me!!

If you watch 'Suite Life on Deck' you'll get this next London moment... "Yay me!!" hehe! And I thought the picture of me here would be funny to show cuz it's all my kids Webkinz helping me celebrate my birthday! LOL Think they have enough?!

I had a pretty good day today. Pain stayed at bay thankfully. Besides the Webkinz fun, my kids made me an awesome card and hubby got me a great card too! I also got a snuggie, tickets to a Carrie Underwood concert & a Maid for a day. Very exciting! And for my 37th year, I'm gonna do big things. I'm gonna try things I haven't done before. I need to make some changes and I just need to start LIVING.

So here's to 2010! May it be better from here on out!!! :D

Another day, another pain

Sorry about the long post yesterday. I wasn't sure where to stop. So I figured me coming home was good. But I wanted to also talk about the day I got my stitches out. OMG. I was worried. How can ya not be?!?! I have a scar from my belly button down to my pubic bone. It's big and there were a lot of stitches. My skin was all pulled up together and I swear with the stitches in, it looked like little toes on my stomach. I was concerned it would look bad after the stitches came out. THANKFULLY I was wrong.

But he lifted, clipped and pulled TWENTY-TWO stitches!! I was doped up on Vicodin too and I still felt each one. There were a few that weren't bad. The others...OUCH. Once it was all done tho, my stomach looked 10 times better. It was all flattened out. So it wouldn't heal bad!! Yay! It felt so much better after they were out!

Now the only pain I have with it, is under the skin. Towards the end of the day it's worse. It cramps and pulls and it hurts. I can feel my stomach on top of it. After I eat, it's painful for a little while, but then goes away. Then comes the gas. I swear if it's not one it's another.

My only complaint at this point is peeing. (sorry tmi) It hurts when I go. My bladder just isn't happy to be in it's new spot. I'm seeing the doc tomorrow and peeing in a cup to rule out a bladder infection. I kinda hope that's it, so at least it can be fixed and stopped! It's painful! Can't wait til all the pains just stop!!

Taking it day by day

Sorry I haven't posted sooner. It's been hard to get on the computer at all. This recovery is ten times harder than the recovery from pit surgery EVER was. I'm 10 days postop and I'm still in pain. I can't sit straight up and I can't stand in one place for more than a couple minutes. I have to be slow getting in and out of bed and I still can't bend or lift anything bigger than a gallon of milk. I lay in a recliner most of the day and you would think I could get on the computer. But I can't lean anything on my stomach and it's hard to type otherwise. Even now I'm leaning, so I have to keep moving from side to side to stay comfortable and not in pain.

So lets go back and I'll go through my surgery and the days in the hospital.

We had to be at the hospital by 5:30am on Friday the 22nd. That meant driving by 5am because it was in downtown Trenton and about 20min away. We got there a little after 5:30. Because I registered a couple days before, I didn't have to worry about that. They finally brought me back at about 6:30am. I changed and they took my temp/blood pressure and put in the IV. I was getting the nervous/cold shivers at this point. I was so scared. Scared that it was cancerous, scared that something would go wrong, scared that I'd have an AI crisis, and overall scared about what to expect postop.

I'd read and did all sorts of research. Keep the ovaries or don't. Keep the cervix or not. I decided to take it all. I had had endometriosis since I was 16. I also had PCOS. But it seems like I had a case of Cysts Gone Wild, because one of my ovaries had a giant cyst on it, 12+cm, yet benign thankfully. And that's what they were taking out. Because I am also panhypopituitary (all my hormones aren't working anymore) my other ovary wasn't working anyway. I have been in menopause, since my pit surgery. So was it worth it to keep it? Knowing that the same thing could happen to the other ovary and I'd have to go through this again anyway? So I chose to just take it all out. As much as I wanted more kids, it wasn't gonna happen. So this was the definitive answer.

Anyway, back to my surgery. It wasn't til about 7am or soon thereafter that they came to get me and take me back to the OR. They wheeled me away and thankfully we didn't have to go far. Soon after I went from the bed they wheeled me in on to the operating table, they gave me my 100mg of hydro & something to relax me. It's like I was floating. It didn't seem like soon after that, that they put the oxygen mask on me and told me to take deep breaths. I think I only took 2 or 3 breaths and then I was out.

Next thing I remember, I was in recovery and felt the searing pain in my stomach. I pushed off the oxygen mask and tried to tell them how much pain I was in. My mouth was so dry it didn't come out that way. But finally they got the point and gave me Dilauded and handed me a button & told me to push it whenever I felt pain. I didn't understand for awhile, but eventually it kicked in! I also had a catheter then too. I was glad they didn't put that in beforehand. One less pain to worry about. I don't know how long I was in recovery. A couple hrs maybe? Eventually they took me to my own room. It was small, but it was nice. I seemed to have good nurses and of course I had my pain button. I slept a lot and vaguely remember hubby coming in talking & then leaving. I know the doctor was there and the only thing I heard was that it wasn't cancer.

Saturday I woke up in more pain that I was the day before. The only difference, the pain meds don't help gas pains. O. M. G. That was truly worst than anything I've felt. It was in my shoulders and it felt like I couldn't breathe. So they took the catheter out and told me to try to get up more. It was hard to get up. It took me a few hrs, but by the end of the day I was doing short walks up & down the hallway. It was the only thing that gave me even remote relief. And that was along with taking Mylicon & GasX. It was hard to walk because the pain on my incision was burning. And of course I didn't want to pop a stitch. I was in tears tho, the pain was so bad.

Sunday morning I woke up and the pain was somewhat better. The nurse overnight gave me some hot tea with Ginger Ale mixed in. It didn't taste great, but I think that helped. The gas started moving after that thankfully. My friends came to see me that afternoon and that helped take my mind off things. Then hubby brought the kids there too. I did more walking and tried to keep moving more as well.

On Monday, they said I was doing so well I was gonna be released. I actually slept all night w/o waking up in pain. I just had to pass a bowel movement. *sigh* I've always had this problem after surgeries. Every single one has ended in a suppository; why should this one be different. And of course it wasn't. I did get to take a shower too and thankfully I managed to do it on my own and didn't need a nurse watching over me. That's always so uncomfortable. In any case, I left the hospital at about 1pm. It was weird to come home and I was sooo tired. I had the sofa bed on the main floor to crawl into and I slept most of the afternoon & evening. The kids were happy to see me too. I hate being away from them.

Since then I've literally been in bed or the recliner. The pain comes & goes and I take the pain meds as needed. I don't have a full appetite yet but it's ok. I'm just taking it day by day. :)