Brief check-in: yep, still alive and kicking

Hi folks--didja miss me?

My surgery was a complete success, and in the first followup appointment the doc gave me a completely clean bill of health.

Now I'm well into the recovery phase, which is going both much faster, and much slower, than I expected. Somehow I had managed to make it almost to age 50 without ever having undergone surgery for anything, not even tonsils, so this is my first experience with how much of a blow to the system it is to undergo major surgery. Plus as this was surgery to my abdomen (hysterectomy plus a hernia repair), I have a major muscle group that is working way hard to, erm, regroup.

So my energy level is extremely deceptive right about now--holding still, or even puttering around my apartment, I feel pretty good. But I went to church on my own this past Sunday, and while I felt fine the whole time I was out, I was so tired and achey the next day that I spent most of it sleeping. On the other hand, I am apparently up and functioning much sooner, and much better, than anyone would have expected.

I am convinced that this past six months of my little health regimen had a huge amount to do with the speed of my recovery. And, except for a few days in the hospital and immediately after when my stomach was so upset that I basically ate anything that I could keep down and called it acceptable, I have stayed on my food plan throughout. (Far superior to those hospital classics, lime Jello and boiled-to-death chicken!)

While I am now cleared for making short car trips and outings, I've been tending to stay close to the nest, so I haven't been back to my HMO's exercise center to weight myself on the Official Scale since before the operation. But I did break down and borrow a bathroom scale from a friend--no idea how it's calibrated with regard to the Official Scale, but whatever.

Anyway, as of this morning the borrowed scale says I weigh something like 251 pounds, which is a significant drop from my last recorded weight, on 7/31/06, of 269 pounds. Not to get too graphic about it, but I'm sure a lot of that weight loss is due to the amount of, erm, material that was removed from my body--NOT a weight loss strategy that I would recommend! However, it is nice to know where the hell I'm at after all that.

Now, it's just a matter of getting the rest of my strength and stamina back. My doctors recommended walking as the best exercise not only for that, but also for helping my innards re-sort themselves. When I was in the hospital, this took the form of walking around the ward. Now that I'm home, I've mostly been just puttering around the apartment--but this morning I got myself down the stairs from my second-story walk-up to take a turn around the apartment complex's courtyard, and then back up the stairs again. I'm hoping to keep doing that on subsequent days, and gradually build up to longer walks.

And I'm still trying to limit my time spent sitting up at the computer, so it might be another several days before my next post here. Or not--boredom is setting in despite books and TV and crocheting and whatnot. But anyway--yep, I'm still not only alive, but thriving, and hope to be fully back in the saddle soon. Onward and upward!

Comments

[Cam]

"my last recorded weight, on 8/31/06"

Eh? September already?

Hey, deceptive energy depletion is my specialty! *grin* If you want to add to the puttering component of your exercise routine, I've found it surprisingly effective to swap out my desk chair for an exercise ball. I get a lot of very light exercise over the course of the day on it, especially in my core stabilizing muscles, just by making the small adjustments that keep me upright. It might be too much for you right now, though.

[Kirk]

Hey Mizducky - Nice to have you back online! Welcome back.

[mizducky]

Oops! That was definitely a date typo. It's fixed now...

Good thought about the exercise ball ... except that my experiences with them so far, well before the operation, have not been so hot. I seem to be a real klutz about getting the ball and myself positioned such that I can work at a desk. Plus--well, maybe I'm sitting on it wrong despite my instructor's best efforts, but somehow the ball always wound up provoking a hemmorhoid flare-up. But maybe I should give it another go--possibly with a smaller-diameter ball than the one my instructor gave me to work with. (And totally on a tangent, I really do need to do something about my desk chair--it's not so hot either in terms of annoying my butt, let alone messing with my back ... )

[mizducky]

Hi, Kirk--nice to be back! Not a moment too soon, either--I'm all out of fermented bean curd, a vital item in my convalescence diet, but I think I'm now strong enough to make an Asian grocery run without wiping myself out too much ... :-)

[Annette]

Welcome back! Glad things,uh, came out ok for you. So to speak.

[mizducky]

Heheheh! Thanks, Annette!