Two weeks of healing

Today I had two thirds of my 50 abdominal staples removed! The incision is so long, my doctor decided to play it safe and leave every third or fourth staple in until the end of the week. He said you can’t just put the staples back in if it opens up, so lets be cautious.  😱

My hemoglobin is just over 100 now, a drastic change from when it dropped to 69 a couple days after surgery. The doctor thinks he feels a large hematoma in my abdomen though, which would explain where the blood was going after surgery. He said it will reabsorb itself so it sounds like something I don’t need to worry too much about.

Mom has been here “babysitting” me since the day after we flew back from Vancouver. Which means she does the things I can’t do, like take Hank out, or carry anything heavy. Sometimes even a dinner plate feels too heavy!

Jeff gives me a daily blood thinner shot in my thigh every day. These are supposed to be self-injectable, but I just can’t hurt myself on purpose! Actually the needle doesn’t hurt much at all, but shortly afterwards, it feels like a stinging burning punch in the leg that can last for an hour. You should see the bruises on my thighs from these! And I still have close to 20 days of these to go!

I can get out of bed on my own now, but it isn’t quick or easy, and nowhere near graceful. I’m slightly more able than a turtle on its back now, so this is progress. I can sleep in bed, except I just can’t get comfortable lying on my sides yet. This is terribly annoying! Sleeping flat on your back, night after night, week after week, is terrible. I keep waking up with numb hands in the morning, so I must sleep with my hands up in the air or something! Some nights I cave in during the night and shuffle out to my recliner chair and sleep there instead.

I’m tired most of the time, and spend my days just watching TV. Daytime TV is terrible, but I’m a new fan of the vet show with Dr. Pol, I watch a ton of Friends and Corner Gas reruns, and I’m into season 3 of Shameless on Netflix.

I’m following the cave rescue in Thailand pretty closely online, especially when I’m awake in the middle of the night with nothing else to do. Six years ago when I spent my summer recovering from a surgery, I remember following the Elliot Lake mall collapse and hunt for the missing people. Feel similar.

I can sit ok, and with a rolled up sweater to prop me up, I managed to go out for dinner with Jeff and Mom to a patio restaurant on the weekend, but walking and standing zaps me fast. I’ve driven a couple of times, to save myself a walk, but the bumps in a car really aren’t comfortable yet either, and I’m so zapped for energy, I’m not even sure I should be driving.

I can walk 2-3 blocks now. One way. And I break into a sweat. And go super slowly. Snail like really. But this is also progress.

And I’m down 17+ pounds since the surgery, just two weeks ago!! I feel great. Really. I feel soooo much better than before surgery, which just makes me realize what hideous condition I was in with that large tumor and on all those pain pills. I’m so glad it is gone.

I haven’t heard any pathology results yet though, so no chemo decisions or timing have been made just yet.

Here are some pics for you:

My view while waiting between staple removal sessions today.

Jeff was able to get out and cut some firewood yesterday – standing dead, fire kill spruce.

Mom said her Yukon Gold beer was “alright”. (Just alright???!?)

Jeff tried out his new log splitter on some of our left over firewood from last year.

Hank got his eyelid stung the other morning!

Oh and I forgot to post this picture in my last post! The morning after surgery a man walked into my room and said “Do you know who I am?” and I said, whoever you are, you’re definitely related! He’s my mom’s cousin who took a float plane over from Vancouver Island to check on me. I’m sure we must have met at some point in our lives, but neither one of us remembered when except we knew we were both at my Grandpa’s funeral. He brought so many gifts! Chocolates, an ATV toy so I didn’t miss riding mine so much, a little Hank stuffed animal, a shot of rye, and a vase of flowers! He was a visual mix of so many relatives, with the same humour of them all, there was just no question he was related!