Post Surgical Recovery

They need to make this shirt for humans!

People keep asking me: "how are you feeling?" and I think when I respond: "I'm good", they don't entirely believe me. But the healing process for laproscopic surgery is surprisingly easy. I'm not saying there isn't any pain or any other issues, but far less than expected. Since getting out of hospital last Wednesday afternoon, I've managed to get myself into a fairly stable routine, which is helpful for physical healing. The schedule is pretty simple:

I wake up no later than 6am. I feed the cat, take my first round of pain meds, eat breakfast and watch the morning news and/or read. Mid-morning, I head out for my first walk of the day. My surgeon has encouraged as much walking as possible which helps speed healing. I generally walk for 30-45 minutes each time out (weather permitting). When I return home, I read and/or take a nap. Lunch and the next round of pain meds are around noon, followed by more reading and internet surfing. My next walk occurs mid-afternoon which almost always consists of a stop at Starbucks to say "hello" to my favorite baristas. But just a "hello" - it's not like I get a snack or anything. :-) Then I return home to watch my beloved Judge Judy, which is followed by dinner for both myself and the cat around 5:30/6:00 pm with a 3rd round of pain medication. Early evening is my last walk of the day. After that it's either watch television or read until 10:00 or 11:00 when I take my last round of pain meds and then I'm off to bed. Granted this schedule is incredibly boring but it's the one that makes the most sense for a quick recovery.

So physically I'm doing well. I wish I could say the same for the mental/emotional part of healing. As I suspected might happen, spending this much time on my own is invariably causing me to spend way too much time in my own head obsessing about...well...everything. I should be preparing myself mentally for the next battle -- chemotherapy, and I am, but occasionally I end up in some bad place reviewing my life and its many failures. It would have been much better if I had the distraction of work to keep my mind off of the negatives in my life, but that can't be helped. Therefore, when I find myself careening down that road to negativity, I have to force myself to make a u-turn and concentrate on other things. But it's not the easiest switch to make. Spending 99% of my day alone makes it difficult to distract myself.

What I wish I had was something I had a couple of years ago - that one person who has the ability to make me laugh and distracts me from my own thoughts and obsessions and gives me the occasional swift kick in the arse. Three years ago, I had a friend who fulfilled that role and who was an indispensable part of my life. Even though we lived hundreds of miles away, our nightly chats got me through some incredibly rough patches, but alas I no longer have that relationship or anything remotely similar. <sigh> Sadly, I miss my friend so very, very much, but I will just have to soldier on alone. Oh, well. C'est la vie!