Surgery #3 recovery first few weeks

 The first few days I mostly slept. I honestly wasn’t in too much pain. However, the swelling was a different story. I would swell up and look pregnant. I felt like a slug. Once the belly got so swollen, the pain was just constant aching. I would need a good nap. 

Exhaustion is the next thing I really noticed. I wasn’t doing much of anything, yet needed so much sleep. Even over the next few weeks, sleep became precious to me. I would go for a walk, need a nap. Go out for dinner, need a nap. At week 6, I still nap occasionally. But I normally am doing more activities. 

Over the first few weeks I felt a little helpless. I had my mom and friends helping. Thank goodness for them. I couldn’t do laundry, walk the dogs or even shake my water bottle. It was important I didn’t do too much or hurt myself. So I asked for help. It was hard, I am independent and don’t like asking people to do my laundry or take my garbage out. I did tho. No regrets, it made it so healing was going faster and I wouldn’t swell as often or as bad. 

Emotions, that’s a fun story. I wasn’t grumpy or depressed. I felt fairly happy to be honest. However, I would cry randomly over silly things. My water bottle was empty, sob fest. I can get more water. It’s not hard, but for some reason I was sobbing. At one point I tried to open a snack and dropped it. My friend got out of the truck and came over to hand it to me. By the time they got around the truck I was crying. Why? Because I wanted my snack and I dropped it. She had it, it was still in the plastic, I could still eat it. However, I was crying because I dropped it. I knew it was stupid and ridiculous, but my eyes wouldn’t stop crying. 

Appetite, at first it was good. I was fairly hungry and ate often. Over time, I think due to the medication, I got less and less hungry. By week 5 I had no appetite. I could eat once a day or small amount and be fine. If I forced myself to eat I would get sick. I ended up forcing myself to eat about 9 very very small snacks a day to ensure I was getting nutrients.

Nightgowns and dresses were worn daily. Nothing else was comfortable. The rubbing on the incision sites drove me insane and would cause pain. I ended up ordering a bunch of nightgowns and basically lived in those for a few weeks. 

Travelling, in any vehicle, I placed a pillow across my stomach so the seatbelt did not rub directly on my incisions sites or stomach. Laying slightly down was more comfortable as a passenger. Walking around, I used a walker. At first to help with walking and also to have somewhere to sit. Eventually it was more for exhaustion and needing somewhere to sit. My cane came in handy for short walks around the block. But not helpful out and about as I would have to find somewhere to sit and rest.

For one weekend we went camping in our RV. I did accidentally step in a hole which caused me to twist and fall. Extremely painful. By the time we got home, two of my incisions sites got a small infection. Polysporin and keeping them clean and dry took care of that quickly.