Monday, May 19, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Day 3: Surprises
It turns out I got bored of posting daily surprisingly quickly. Apparently there just aren't that many exciting things to talk about in surgery recovery, as most of the major developments revolve around the return of normal body functions, most of which are neither exciting nor polite. So with that in mind, here's a short list of surprises revolving around surgery:
Surprise #1 - Almost no pain. Other than a bit of abdominal pain, I feel essentially fine as long as I'm not moving, and even moving isn't terrible as long as I don't work my abs. This is a lot different from when I injured my kidney, when I was on narcotics and basically sprawled out in bed in pain, all the time, for around two weeks. I'm not even taking tylenol that regularly anymore. (I think about it sometimes, so I'm at something like 4 pills a day)
Surprise #2 - Shoulder and Neck pain. Despite the relatively little pain, the worst of it is usually around my shoulders and neck. This was unexpected, since from what I understand my shoulders aren't that closely involved in my kidney function. I'm betting it's either because someone was kneeling on me during surgery, or my muscles get all stiff when I don't use them.
Surprise #3 - Shaving. Turns out they shaved off all the hair around my belly button. I suppose I should have seen that coming, but yeah. Surprise!
Surprise #4 - Eating. This is another non-issue. Where-as before I basically couldn't eat anything and threw up a few times, this time I was eating grilled cheese and soup within hours of the surgery. By now I basically feel up for anything. Supposedly repairing my kidney will make me less prone to nausea, we'll see how that goes.
Surprise #5 - Peeing. I know this gets into the not-exiting-or-polite body function section, but I'm fairly sure both my kidneys are now working, because I pretty much have to pee all the time. It's honestly a little absurd. I mean I'm drinking a fair amount of water, but I'm peeing like 10 times a day. I'm concerned this could be the end of the legendary Perkes bladder (is that really legendary, or does it just come up occasionally on road trips?), but I'm hoping that it's just left over tenderness from having my urinary tract jacked up from all directions.
By the way, happy nurses week! I really appreciate all the wonderful nurses at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, who made my stay surprisingly enjoyable. And a shout-out to all my male nurses. They may not be as beautiful as the women (really though, I've never met a nursing student who wasn't both beautiful and amazing, I'm not quite sure how that happens), but they make for slightly less awkward discussions of urination.
Surprise #1 - Almost no pain. Other than a bit of abdominal pain, I feel essentially fine as long as I'm not moving, and even moving isn't terrible as long as I don't work my abs. This is a lot different from when I injured my kidney, when I was on narcotics and basically sprawled out in bed in pain, all the time, for around two weeks. I'm not even taking tylenol that regularly anymore. (I think about it sometimes, so I'm at something like 4 pills a day)
Surprise #2 - Shoulder and Neck pain. Despite the relatively little pain, the worst of it is usually around my shoulders and neck. This was unexpected, since from what I understand my shoulders aren't that closely involved in my kidney function. I'm betting it's either because someone was kneeling on me during surgery, or my muscles get all stiff when I don't use them.
Surprise #3 - Shaving. Turns out they shaved off all the hair around my belly button. I suppose I should have seen that coming, but yeah. Surprise!
Surprise #4 - Eating. This is another non-issue. Where-as before I basically couldn't eat anything and threw up a few times, this time I was eating grilled cheese and soup within hours of the surgery. By now I basically feel up for anything. Supposedly repairing my kidney will make me less prone to nausea, we'll see how that goes.
Surprise #5 - Peeing. I know this gets into the not-exiting-or-polite body function section, but I'm fairly sure both my kidneys are now working, because I pretty much have to pee all the time. It's honestly a little absurd. I mean I'm drinking a fair amount of water, but I'm peeing like 10 times a day. I'm concerned this could be the end of the legendary Perkes bladder (is that really legendary, or does it just come up occasionally on road trips?), but I'm hoping that it's just left over tenderness from having my urinary tract jacked up from all directions.
By the way, happy nurses week! I really appreciate all the wonderful nurses at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, who made my stay surprisingly enjoyable. And a shout-out to all my male nurses. They may not be as beautiful as the women (really though, I've never met a nursing student who wasn't both beautiful and amazing, I'm not quite sure how that happens), but they make for slightly less awkward discussions of urination.
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| From the return from Havasupai, when we got lost and ended up in California |
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Day 1: homeward bound
Sometimes you get blood from your wounds on your white shirt.
I went home today. I'm feeling pretty good, and am surviving without narcotics, so that's a plus. Now I just need to get to where I can move without pain. I've got blankets, tv, and lots of water. Off we go.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Day 0
Everything went well, I'm hoping one of the surgeons will come in and talk about it, and I asked them if they could get me a movie of the surgery, so we'll see if that happens. I'm the mean time, here's my view, not quite as cool as saturday, but still nice.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Operation: t minus 7.25 hours
When you make a decimal of an hour, do you divide the minutes by 60 or by 100? Maybe I should just stay away from mixed bases...
I decided that to keep my family informed and myself entertained, I'll post at least a picture every day--starting from the surgery until whenever I get board/back to normal and distracted by fun.
Todays picture is from one of my many recent adventures:
Yesterday I got up into rock canyon and went rock climbing to celebrate my last little bit of normal life before a couple weeks of surgery recuperation. It was a lot of fun, and the view (as you can see) was excellent.
It's weird to go in for surgery when I feel as healthy as I've ever been, it seems somewhat counterproductive. But then I suppose you want to be healthy before surgery, the better to heal you with.
In any case, I have to be at the hospital in six hours, and although I'm going to get a pretty gnarly nap tomorrow, I might as well be off to bed.
I decided that to keep my family informed and myself entertained, I'll post at least a picture every day--starting from the surgery until whenever I get board/back to normal and distracted by fun.
Todays picture is from one of my many recent adventures:
 |
| Those are Google Fiber sunglasses, so they're basically Google Glass. |
Yesterday I got up into rock canyon and went rock climbing to celebrate my last little bit of normal life before a couple weeks of surgery recuperation. It was a lot of fun, and the view (as you can see) was excellent.
It's weird to go in for surgery when I feel as healthy as I've ever been, it seems somewhat counterproductive. But then I suppose you want to be healthy before surgery, the better to heal you with.
In any case, I have to be at the hospital in six hours, and although I'm going to get a pretty gnarly nap tomorrow, I might as well be off to bed.
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