7 Days Post Op

Technically it's not really a full 7 days until about 10:45 a.m., but I'm up now so I'm calling it that. Having finished with my giving you all the bad news posting from yesterday we will be back to our regularly programming of honesty tempered with lightheartedness so that I don't throw off anyone's tummy tucking groove. But what I said yesterday - still stands. I'm just saying.

I sneezed last night in bed and almost died - okay that's hyperbolizing a titch, but that sneeze? It took me about 5 minutes of deep breathing to recover. David looked at me in terror from across the bed. Dragging his hand to the drain to make sure I wasn't already bleeding out from surely popping every stitch in my muscle tissue. I think what I might miss most about this process is being able to snuggle with him and spoon right before I fall asleep because I'm so much higher on the bed with my wedged pillows and he's WAY down below me - I feel like everything I say to him must echo like in the Riccola commercial. "Loooooooooooooove yooooooouuuuuu... Sweeeeeeeeeeet Dreeeeeeaaaaams."

I had the best time last night with my tribe of gals. It was so nice to spend time with people from the real world. I held a pillow tightly over my lap so that Cuckoo Banana Shannon wouldn't kill me with her hilarious stories. I can't tell you how much I love you all and how great it was to see you!

So I have some ideas (and not in that crazy mad scientist way) ... Tonight, I'm going to sleep with 2 wedged-shaped pillows instead of the one I have been sleeping with for the past 3 three nights and see if that will aid in reducing th swelling in my tummy. (Because I think the swelling that I've been noticing the last little while didn't start until after I changed my angle of sleeping even though it feels so much better to be slightly flatter in bed.) I also believe that part of the reason that I can't stand up completely straight (although I'm standing up pretty darned well) is that the surgical tape is so tight on my upper abdomen that it's my early warning system for trying to stand up too straight. "WARNING! APPROACHING THE STRAIGHTENING ZONE! PULL BACK! PULL BACK!!" I am going to try to walk some more today because I think my circulation is getting a little wonky. My hands and feet were freezing all day yesterday - now that may have to do more with the fact that we really should have put the boiler on in the house as it's only about 4 degrees celcius out there and less to do with impending venal failure, but I think straight walking (not as in walking while standing straight but rather avoiding going up and down stairs) might actually be good for me. We'll see if I can convince my Mom of that. My lower back is protesting like a peevish sheep (meh. meh. meh.) and I'm trying to figure out how to best combat that. Maybe if I get somebody to rub me with some Traumeel cream?

Today I call the surgeon to giver her an update and I hope that by next Tuesday (12 days post op) I will be getting the okay to remove the drain, stand up tall and SHOWER!!!!! Plans for diversions today include perhaps watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice and trying some more knitting - which my Mom taught me yesterday. I was all thumbs and felt like she might actually be speaking Danish to me rather than English and that my IQ may have dropped by double digits. Mom kept saying "You know Heather, holding the tongue out of the corner of your mouth doesn't actually help you knit any better." My nine year-old daughter, when she asked if she could try at the end of the day, pretty much got it in one go. "Oh you mean like this Mummy?" That's my girl!

Cheers!
Heathere

Today's plan