celticdragonfly

Yesterday's piece of wisdom - just because circumstances have forced me to "go back to work" now, rather than at the 6 weeks to 3 months that is apparently what's sensible for someone who's had this surgery, does NOT mean that I am at the state of recovery of someone ready to go back to work.

Now if I can just keep remembering that.

[Marlin]I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I died I'm dead[/Marlin]

I keep thinking hey, I'm doing better today, hey, it's okay, I can mange a bit more!

Then I try to go do a bit more.

Then I end up sore, pained, exhausted, and totally wiped out. And then Karl brings me food, a drink, and my pain pills.

He says I'm like the Calvin and Hobbes comic

{Thought bubbles}: Go ahead down. You'll miss all those trees. You can do it. You'll stop before you go over that ledge at the bottom. You won't go into that pond. Besides, the ice is probably real thick anyway. Go ahead down.
Calvin: My brain is trying to kill me.

Poor Karl.

Hello, friends. I'm back to solo work today for the first time post-surgery. We will see how I do. I need to remember to stay on top of the ibuprofen. Probably best to stay off the Big Pain Pills if I can manage. I suspect it's going to be a week with plenty of videos, sigh. selenite may well come home early many days this week. He has been definitely told to tonight, so we can get the kids ready for Halloween.

And one of the major things I have to do today is frantically work on a last-minute knitting project for part of one of the Halloween costumes. While standing, mostly, for as long as I can. I should have had selenite bring down the big wooden chair that I've been using in the bedroom. Soft chairs are more problematic.

Looks like the chances of me getting local friends to come help me this weekend are not good - I'd forgotten that Satuday is going to be the ORAC meeting at the Tyra house. I wish I could go. I might be able to handle the drive, but not getting the kids in and out of the van and taking care of them without gates and such all day.

So I started to add up the various costs of this surgery and more especially the support network we've needed to cobble up to get the family through this. Yeesh. For all this, my tush oughta be gold-plated.

Also, it's making me realize more the value of my "job", in seeing what it costs to replace me for a week.

Apparently going back upstairs has reopened a part of the incision.

Well, isn't that special.

Now I have to figure out what to do about tomorrow. Wondering if I should have Karl bring chairs up to the upstairs nook and ask them to come up and talk to me there.

I'm CLEAN! Oh it feels so good.

Karl helped me get my hair and face washed yesterday. But just now he helped me through an entire shower. Oh bliss! Thank goodness for the tub with the detachable shower head and hose set. And for a loving dedicated husband willing to wash all the parts I can't reach because I can't bend, and to put a new clean dressing on afterwards.

OH, it feels so so so good to be clean and in clean pajamas!

THURSDAY: I had hoped to have the laptop working with a wireless connection up here in my bed today, thanks to Gerry Tyra setting it up for me last night, but sadly something went wrong after he left. We're hoping to get that fixed soon. In the meantime I'm going to type this up and save it to post later.

And yay, as you can see, I'm back online! Gerry is great. He is one dedicated engineer who is determined to fix a problem that's presented to him, and will be a very helpful force in my recuperation.
( surgery and post-surgery experiences )
And yes, I'm up way too late. Poor Maggie is having night terrors - probably a mix of stress and worry over me, excitement of Grandma and the Tyras visiting, and a disrupted sleep schedule. She had some last night, tonight is worse. Karl was downstairs cuddling her for a while, and has been exiled to sleep in there with the kids to try to keep them soothed. I offered to bring her in with us, but he pointed out that would put her little kicky feet right at incision level. Right.

So here I am, up and showered and dressed and ready to head off to my surgery. I am soooo tired, my eyeballs hurt, and I'm thirsty and hungry and can't have anything to eat or drink.

I hope it all goes smoothly.

I had my pre-op appointment with the orthopedic surgeon this morning. It went very quickly. He's fast, efficient, gruff but with a bit of a twinkle. I find him a little intimidating, although I mostly think he's like that because he's that good. I hate to think how intimidating he must be to someone who doesn't process as fast as I do.

He seems to think this will be fairly routine. I hope so. He says I should be able to shower the next day, wait 2 weeks for swimming. He does these a lot - I asked, he does 15 to 20 of these a year, he gets people referred from all over Texas.

Tomorrow I go for the pre-op appointment at the hospital. I'm sure there will be lots of paperwork, and I think some blood tests. I have an envelope of papers I'm to take in. I went through them, and feel reassured, it looks clear that the problem is coccyx only, the rest of the back isn't involved. Interesting to see some of the things he was checking for last time that I didn't realize he was checking for - like in the one test, he was noting down that I can do the 90 degree bend with no problem.

I am a bit more nervous about it than I want to admit - in the errands on the way home, I stopped for some groceries, and realized I was getting Laura-specific comfort foods...

I just got back home from the appointment with the orthopedic specialist. (For anyone not up to date, I have major coccygodynia problems)

WOO-HOO! They're going to FIX the problem!

They were efficient at getting me in. The nurse had clearly read the forms I'd filled out and the extra stuff I'd typed up detailing the pain, the history, and all that. She looked at the xray and said yeah, there's the problem. The doctor came in, talked to me about the pain and where it was, took a look at the x-rays I'd brought, and said "Oh, that's going to have to come out." He did a rectal exam, which was well, pretty unpleasant, but such is life.

I went in expecting I'd probably have to convince the doctor that yes, I was a good candidate for this surgery, I'd read up on it and here were these info papers I had on it and here was why I fit the profile. Whoa. I'm getting the surgery!

They offered a first date of Sept. 21st, but that would have totally trashed FenCon. I wish I could have gotten this done earlier and been recovered by then, but oh well, too late for that. So it looks like Oct. 12th is the likely date. They'll be clearing things with insurance and calling me to set it up.

The tough part is going to be recovery from the surgery. This is NOT something you just bounce back from. Once I do recover from it, life will be much better in the long run. But the short term is going to be problematic. selenite is concerned about me trying to do too much too soon and aggravating things and making the recovery a lot harder. He's threatening to record a message about it and make my PC play it every couple of hours. I'm all for taking it easy and making sure I recover properly. BUT - I have this 24/7 job that can't be set aside. Two small children. I was hoping that bkseiver (my mom) could come out and help for a while. She says she has Eastern Star stuff a few days after my surgery, and then is planning to help with a church fair in November, so it doesn't sound likely. I'm not sure yet what we're going to do. But we have to get this fixed. It's really dominating my life these days. And of course, all that pain is because the dislocated joints are causing tissue damage, the sooner that's cleared up the better.

This is going to be serious surgery, but I think it will really make things better. And I owe major thanks to technomom, who sent me to the www.coccyx.org site, that told me about this surgery and had the referral list of doctors that I found this specialist on.

Oh, and I feel MAJOR vindictive pleasure and a mad HAH! at the stupid previous specialist, who wouldn't listen to me and wouldn't look at the X-rays but insisted that I had a lumbar disc problem. HAH.

I got a call from my doctor's office this afternoon. They have the report back, why yes, I do have a dislocated coccyx. They'd like to refer me to a specialist. I like the sound of this. The person that deals with their referrals is out until Monday, but I should be hearing from her early next week. Okay, sounds good to me.

Had another chiropractor's visit today. ( Read more... )