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2 weeks
Today marks the magical two week point after surgery where life supposedly returns to normal. While my surgery now seems like it was a long time ago, I don’t feel totally healed yet. I imagine that once I’m allowed to do heavy lifting/work  after six weeks I will feel like I am healed, at least from the outside.
I do feel as though I’m able to get back to most of my activities but I’m aware that some still tire me a bit more easily than I expect. Obviously the two weeks is a very general marker and each person’s experience will vary a bit. I ended up driving quite a bit yesterday to help out a friend who is currently without a working vehicle and I was tired by the time I returned home a couple hours or so later. Of course it might be just a matter of forgetting how tiring driving is too. :)
I’m thinking I might try starting back into exercise today. My appetite seems to be back and I’ve found I’m eating too much and too often right now. A couple days ago we had fish and chips from a local shop. I did order grilled instead of fried fish but then gorged on the chips. I also added a couple bites of an extra piece of fried fish, which I regretted almost immediately. Fortunately, I’ve not suffered any big digestive problems so far but I did feel pretty awful afterwards due to overeating. Anyway, getting back to regular exercise usually helps me manage my eating habits so it’s now one of my priorities.
The bills from surgery have started to trickle in. I’ve already received ones for pathology and fluoroscopy which should be mostly refunded by our government-funded Medicare service.  I expect a bill from the anesthetist and another one from the hospital for surgical supplies (TED stockings and DVT-preventing intermittent pneumatic leg compression sleeves). These surgical supplies are  the items that really bug me because we have the highest coverage of private health insurance available and yet, this isn’t covered.
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Getting out
I found I was a bit more tired yesterday than I realised. I ended up taking something akin to a nap in late morning but “woke up” feeling more tired than I’d been all day. Not exactly a good rest. I did eventually get out of the house on my own in the afternoon for a couple of hours when I went off to the library and then to the grocery store. Driving felt a bit alien and tired me out more than I would have expected, especially since I didn’t venture that far from home. Â I’d had visions of making dinner when I got home but was too tired. I’d also had to deal with an unexpectedly heavy grocery bag when I’m not supposed to be doing heavy work or lifting until six weeks. Fortunately I only had to get it into the shopping cart and then into the car. The Scientist brought that one inside for me and told me off for lifting it in the first place. The worst part of going out is that I had expectations of really enjoying myself but it was mostly disappointing. It was like I was dragging myself around, even at the library. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time wandering around the library because I was on my feet the whole time I was there.
I again woke up too early this morning, thanks to my bladder, and it took a long while to get back to sleep again. There seems to be a pattern here…Anyway, I finally did get back to a pretty solid sleep for at least one and half hours. What a difference a proper sleep makes! Last night I was feeling quite hesitant about going out again today. But I was feeling well enough that I did go out and it went pretty well. I went to a local shopping center and wandered around a few of the shops then stopped at our local grocery store to get something for dinner. This time I wasn’t ready to crash when I got home and was able to handle cooking the dinner, which didn’t require too much effort. I’m still a bit tired but not exhausted like yesterday. While I still had little satisfaction from wandering through the shops, I did feel pretty good about being able to cook dinner, which was appreciated by all.
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Feeling better
Yesterday I woke up at 5am and was sure I’d need a nap by midday. That never happened although there was a period of time where I felt pretty sleepy. I got into bed and read a book, certain that I would relax into some sort of slumber. But I remained quite awake. The upshot is I don’t need endless amounts of sleep any more. Maybe my body is rebelling against too much sleep. I did begin to worry, though, that I would find it hard to get to sleep last night. Fortunately, I suddenly found myself ready to go to sleep, right at that moment. This was just after 10pm. I did manage to take care of a couple things but went to sleep within minutes of climbing into bed. This morning I woke around 6am and still felt tired but couldn’t sleep. Once my bladder kicked in, that was the end of sleep.
I’m pretty sure I’ve turned a corner in my recovery. I think I started feeling physically better a couple days ago but the “blues’ that struck me from Monday couldn’t quite be shaken. I don’t think I’m quite there yet but I think getting myself out of the house and doing normal things might shake the last of that. Yesterday I peeled back the dressing on the last incision and it seems to be healing fine although I can see that one leaving more of a scar than the others. I replaced the dressing and might take it off in a day or so when I feel more assured it won’t drive me batty due to the discomfort.
So the next part of this recovery process is likely to avoid overdoing things. I am feeling better but I’m not yet 100%.
Ironically, I’m suddenly feeling really sleepy again. Â Might just take my book back to bed and see if I can squeeze a bit more sleep in.
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Update
It’s now 7 .5 days since my surgery and I’m still recovering. Fortunately pain hasn’t been a problem at any point. I stopped taking the Tramadol on Saturday and was perfectly fine on just the Panadol. I’m not sure I even needed the Panadol, aside from the first day or so I was home. I did continue to take that until Sunday but not on as regular a schedule. I find it amazing to have had major abdominal surgery and have so little pain afterwards.
The worst thing so far has been the tiredness. Until yesterday, I had been needing two or more naps every day. I managed to get through yesterday without a nap but was past ready to crash when I finally got to bed after 11pm last night. Unfortunately my bladder woke me at 5 am  (as it has several times now) and I simply couldn’t get back to sleep. So I am almost certain to need a top-up today. I’m thinking seriously about taking a walk around the block this afternoon in hopes to getting some energy back. It’s a bit like when I’ve slacked off on exercise for way too long and just need to jolt my body out of the lethargy.
I think Monday was possibly the low point of my recovery. I think the post-surgery blues had set in and I was feeling close to tears much of the day, for no reason I could fathom. That feeling isn’t totally gone now but is much less intense than Monday. Â I did sleep a lot that but when I was awake I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I eventually settled into finishing a book I’d started back in November then left sitting on the shelf for several weeks. It’s soon due back to the library so I guess that was productive. There were also other issues, mostly digestive, that made me feel like I’d had a bit of a setback at this point. The digestive problems didn’t continue yesterday so I’m hoping that was just a temporary obstacle in recovery.
Monday I finally braved removal of the dressings for three of the four incisions. I was expecting a bit of ugliness but none looked particularly noteworthy at all. The belly button incision is a bit more obvious if I look at it but due to its location, it’s the least visible. One just under my breastbone looks like a mere scratch although the skin feels a bit irregular. The other open looks like a bit more than a scratch and that is the one that has been uncomfortable since removing the dressing. Every time I moved, it felt like it was being pulled around and sometimes it felt like it was going to open. It’s location below my breast and near the lung area is more prone to be moved about that the other one so I’m sure this is normal. That has improved but it’s still distracting me. I haven’t removed the dressing for the fourth incision because the nurse said to wait until it looks “tatty’ and it doesn’t even though it’s been five days now. That’s where the drain was and I suspect it will be more bothersome than the one next to it has been.
I’m now looking forward to that magical two week mark where I supposedly will be mostly back to normal. I do have a ban on heavy lifting until six weeks but I don’t think that would be an issue anyway. I’m really glad this surgery is now available laparascopically and has such a reduced recovery time. I can’t imagine having several more weeks of this to look forward to.
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Further observations on surgery
Most of this post was written not long after the previous one but I wanted to see if anything else came to mind before posting. I ended up doing almost a full rewrite after a a note I’d added using the WordPress app on my ipod completely messed up the formatting and I couldn’t be bothered trying to work out how to fix it. Funnily enough, I ended up with a shorter post despite elaborating on the note I’d added.********************************************************************************************************************************Some time during my first night I realized my eyes had become very dry and asked the nurse if it was possible to get some tear replacement drops. Apparently this wasn’t possible, either because it was middle of the night or some other reason. Â Or maybe she didn’t quite understand the problem. She did offer to bring some saline-soaked gauze to put on my eyes to help soothe them and then forgot until morning. While that was helpful, I had more relief when the Scientist brought my drops from home.****************************************************************I’m wondering why my drain wasn’t removed until the day I left hospital. I’d been told it was due to be removed the day after surgery but it wasn’t until the second morning it was finally done. The only reason I can come up with is that the plan was changed when I required the second catheter for my bladder. While my second night’s sleep was a huge improvement over the first, I think I’d have slept even better without the extra tube keeping me on my back.****************************************************************The nurses seemed to have varied ideas of appropriate sites for doing the heparin injection. The first ones were done on the front of each leg. The third one said stomach was better and it did seem to have little bruising. But then another nurse thought it was better on the fatty outside part of the upper thigh. Due to timing, she did two of the injections and I found when I was home there was still quite a bit of bruising there. That was more uncomfortable than the big bruise on the front of one of my legs since I sleep most of the night.A cholangiogram was done during surgery to visualise the bile ducts and the film and report were left for me in the room on day two. When I looked at the report later, I found it showed an area of the common bile duct which had underfilled with contrast. It also showed some mild narrowing of the duct but it went on to say there was free drainage to the duodenum. I plan to ask the surgeon about this at my follow up. Meanwhile, my understanding of this is that a stone was either still there during surgery or had recently been there but possibly had passed out of the duct. From what I’ve read, stones in the common bile duct are uncommon so I wonder if this is the same area that showed evidence of a stone back in November when I had my last attack or if there was a second stone. I stopped having pains after any food in early December so presumed the stone had passed. But I started having some mild pains again a few days before my surgery.****************************************************************I was really happy with the bedside manner of pretty much everyone who looked after me in the hospital. This includes the surgeon, anaesthetist, all the nurses and other staff. It would seem that at least one of them might have been having a bad day but either this wasn’t the case or it was covered up well. I don’t know if the fact this was a private hospital had any bearing or not.****************************************************************After I’d had my surgery and was back at my room, I got the guide to having laparascopic gallbaldder removal. I knew I’d be getting something since the nurse who’d spoken to me by phone told me she’d put information about what to expect at discharge in my file. But the guide should have been given to me before surgery since half of it was related to the the pre-surgery period. While most of it wasn’t of much consequence in the end, it might have been nice to know exactly what to take with me to the hospital. A minor thing was the need of a pen to fill out menu cards while there. It happens I did have a pen with me but only because I planned to work on puzzles while there. More important was the information advising me to take deep breaths after surgery to prevent clots occurring in my lungs. While I was told by the nurse ahead of time to make sure I moved my toes/feet around to keep circulation in my legs, this wasn’t discussed at any point, before or after surgery. Deep breathing really hurt and made me cough so I tended to avoid it. But I’d have made an effort had I known this was expected. I plan to provide some feedback on this since it could be important for some patients. Ironically, the foot/toe movement probably was less of an issue due to the dvt prevention treatment I had over the first night.***************************************************************When I first woke up in recovery, I am almost certain I woke from a dream and remember being a bit surprised by that. I haven’t had that feeling when I’ve had general anaesthesia in the past and I really thought that the type of unconsciousness would have ruled out any type of REM sleep. Either that or I moved into that stage of sleep after the GA was removed but before I regained consciousness.