Those First Few Days' Recovery At Home

1st day at home:  Feeling great. Ate soup with a little more sustenance, spicy (to my tongue) chicken taco soup.  I took a risk. I figured it is possible the spiciness and beans could help wake up my bowels. If not, I could have set myself up for more nausea. Yay! My risk was good, and (TMI, but so important) I tooted! One more milestone met. I won't bore you with my results, but you might like to know that in my discharge kit, they gave me an automatic blood pressure kit and trained me how to use it. I am to keep a record as I take my blood pressure twice daily. I am to bring my list to my 2 week appointment.

In the evening, I noticed quite a bit of red around my largest incision. Also, I am bloated enough to look a good 5 months pregnant. The nurse suggested milk of magnesia or suppositories for relief from bloating and possible constipation. As far as the redness goes, if I spike a fever higher than 101 or have discharge with nasty odor, they want to see me, but for now I should just watch.

2nd day at home: Since I was up standing, walking, or sitting much more than resting in bed yesterday, I am thinking that possibly I pushed myself a little too far. I felt just fine, but maybe because I was somewhat active, my body couldn't use all its strength to fix me.

For this reason, I decided to be in bed today, except for meals, medicine and bathroom. I have been able to pass quite a bit of gas, but I think my newly awake bowels are still groggy, because by morning my tummy was pretty normal, by afternoon I looked a good 5 months, maybe pushing 6 months, pregnant. The red around the incision doesn't appear to have increased. No fever.

I had forgotten to mention this discovery yesterday, and because it is more obvious today, I will mention that my belly below my belly button level, and especially from my center to left side, feels asleep! I have heard that it will take about 2 years for all the nerves to reattach and I get all my feeling there back.

3rd day at home: I feel so good, I feel like I must be taking advantage of my parents; however, I know that in order for me to recover right, I need to take it easy, even if I am feeling well.

I still look pregnant, but not as much as I did yesterday.

Not much to report. It was a good day.

4th day at home: Today marks one week since the operation. I no longer look pregnant; instead I look like I am pushing my tummy out as hard as I can to say 'look, I look pregnant'.

I am SO glad that I religiously took my stool softener and, last couple of days, milk of magnesia. I finally passed this important milestone (bowels working properly again), and I don't want to know how it would have been without those two meds.

I feel zero pain, almost no burning, and sometimes my scabs itch. I thought I would find out if I really do have zero pain, or if the hydrocodone was doing a great job. This morning I took half of my pain medicine and one Tylenol. That seemed to be enough. I decided to wait until my body tells me it is time for more meds before taking more. According to my schedule, I missed my last pill 2 1/2 hours ago. I still have no pain. I am a little sleepy, which I believe is my body's way to tell me it wants me to slow down further so it can fix me faster, but no pain.... Update: I just felt my first indication that it would be good to take my pain meds again, tight muscles and burning incision...7 hours after my last dose, instead of 4.