I done the thing I was most scared of post surgery – I have slept a whole night in a bed without ripping out my tubes or rolling onto my chest. For a devoted fetal sleeper, that’s a huge weight off my mind! What I actually ended up doing was (with assistance, because apparently pillows are large and bulky and hard to move for me now) building a little pillow cage so that my arms rested up on either side of me and I had a tactile impediment to rolling over. Definitely building another one of those when I get home today.

I am actually just as happy today as I was yesterday, and still very comfortable in terms of pain management. I can eat, play games on my tablet, type, make breakfast – although someone had to help me carry the milk for my coffee – wash, and change my underpants/trousers. I CANNOT change my shirt, put on socks, pick up a full bottle of liquid comfortably, or get the child cap off my medication. Getting up and lying down is easiest when I can hook my feet around something, or at least get my butt where I need it first and then roll up or down without putting my arms down.

I am VERY glad that I thought to put my little pixie booties in my suitcase at the last minute, because it is chilly up in Cleveland and it means I can keep my feet warm by myself rather than waiting for someone to put my socks on. I’m also very glad that at CVS yesterday we picked up straws – I know they’re lousy for the environment but it meant that I could just stick one in the bottle of gatorade and drink whenever I needed to without help. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m trying to be as independent as I can be, which will surprise absolutely no-one who knows me. Along these lines I got my friend to take the top off of ALL my medication before we went to bed so that I didn’t have to wake her up if I needed pain relief in the morning.

Ok, let’s talk about pain. Yesterday it was my armpits that hurt most, because that’s where they made the incision for the drains. As the day wore on I started to feel my chest was bruised and tight, but even by the time I was supposed to take the drugs again it wasn’t unbearable. The first full dose of Oxycodone gave me a frightening dizzy spell, where I apparently went as white as a sheet and had to lie down really really fast, even though I’d been resting and eating as I took it. On a doctor’s advice I dropped straight down to a half dose, topped up with 600mgs of ibuprofen, which seems to be managing the pain absolutely fine. I haven’t needed the anti-nausea medication at all. The nurses advised that I might want benadryl, in case the compression vest or dressing foam got itchy, but so far it’s not irritating me that badly. I definitely like lying down and sitting up a lot more than I like standing, both because of some lingering dizziness and because I tend to get less pain when my back is propped, but overall I think my main danger is overdoing it because I’m too comfortable, rather than feeling like I can’t do anything.

If you didn’t see the pictures on the last post, I have a drain coming out from each armpit and attached to the bottom of my compression vest. They look like little turkey basters, and gently suction out all the icky fluids from my surgery site in a way that’s supposed to improve healing time. Yesterday, as you saw, I was walking around in bright green pants and the drains were full of bright red fluid… so I’m calling them my Christmas baubles now. Emptying them doesn’t hurt, and is a surprisingly hygienic process – I think that I could almost do it myself, but let’s not cross that bridge unless I absolutely have to.

The next obstacle is the drive home, which we’ll probably start within the hour. Let’s see how my little cat does when I tell her to please not play with the tubes dangling down and wiggling by my sides all day.