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14 April 2018 @ 04:26 pm

Sorry for the delay in posting. I think my original plan was to get back online sooner and let you all know I made it through the surgery okay, instead of letting scary silence build up. But that got lost in a blur of days of pain meds, not being able to sit up much, and then once I could... spending a horrific amount of time trying to finish my yearly self-evaluation stuff for work before yesterday's deadline. Pretty much all day yesterday, and I am SO glad that's over with. Now I have to finish our taxes over the next couple of days. :O

And no, I did not actually finish either of those before the surgery came up, despite all effort. I kept trying to do the work eval thing, and I just couldn't focus enough to summarize all of that coherently and in the new (New!Every!Single!Year!) format needed for the office. /o\

So, the surgery went well, but it was long. 4 1/2 hours in surgery, then 5 hours in the recovery room. Most of that last part was trying to get awake enough from the anaesthesia to go home. And to demonstrate that I didn't need the catheter any more, because nobody wants to go home with that!

I didn't even see the operating room. The anaesthetic hit while I was being wheeled through the hallway, so the next thing I know, I was in the recovery bay. Woke up in pain, and I thought the meds would have done a better job over time, but they just lessened the pain instead of blocking it. Still, could have been worse. Lots of unexpected groin pain along the tendons, which I realized afterwards meant that they probably had my knees spread apart for hours until the joints locked up. \o/ I couldn't move my right leg at all without lifting it with my hands. Funny—the pain reminded me of when I was pregnant and the kids's heads dropped to where they could cut the circulation to those leg nerves and numb everything until I couldn't move. Our son was the worst, since he could get both legs at the same time.

The pre-op and post-op recovery nurses were awesome, and I was home by about 6:30 p.m. for an exciting dinner of yogurt and a banana, and an early bedtime around 9:30. And thanks to having a pain medication that did not involve synthetic codeine, I got a fairly good night's sleep instead of the itchy restlessness after my first surgery.

So I'm home, on the mend, and mourning the six weeks until I can get back on the bicycle again. SIX WEEKS! I'll also be desperately trying to avoid gaining a ton of weight until then, so... \o?

Tags: cycling, me

19 comments | Say what you feel

19 comments —

( 19 comments — Say what you feel )

adoptedwriter on April 15th, 2018 04:23 am (UTC)

Glad it’s over and you’re ok.

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halfshellvenus on April 15th, 2018 05:09 am (UTC)

Me too, and thank you!

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xo_kizzy_xo on April 15th, 2018 09:18 am (UTC)

I had no doubt that you'd come through this (relatively) intact. But ugh, recovery times. I was too woozy the first couple of weeks to care about eating. As I gradually came out of the anesthesia fog, my appetite returned. I tried my damndest to watch what I ate, but at times it was difficult with SO and his "bachelor" food :eyeroll:

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halfshellvenus on April 15th, 2018 07:04 pm (UTC)

Ack, bachelor food! I had a coworker once who was kind of a beanpole, and he would eat ice cream and stuff in front of his wife (who didn't want it in the house) and complain that she'd kind of let herself go after having two kids. He had the metabolism of a hurricane, and hers was kind of sluggish (like a lot of us). Way to be supportive, dude!

I'll slowly be increasing walking, which doesn't begin to compare to riding 20-26 miles at speed 4-5 days a week. But I took the opportunity of surgery prep and surgery itself to stop eating sugar, so that really helps. *fingers crossed*

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xo_kizzy_xo on April 16th, 2018 12:04 pm (UTC)

It's laziness, tbh. It's like he didn't WANT to drive down to our local supermarket (a MILE away, mind you) "because it takes too much time", so we ordered from Amazon Fresh a couple of times. He claims he likes to cook but he won't -- it's easier to order something at a discount from Pizza Store Owner. At one point I placed an order with Instacart so I could get salad fixings/greenery into the fridge and ended up spending $$$ for the convenience as opposed to giving HIM a list and having HIM go to the store. GAH, I'm still irritated, LOL!

The main difference was that I couldn't walk. Once we got the scooter, though, I joined the twice-daily walk-with-Max. We just had to avoid the hillier areas so I wouldn't suddenly lose control and careen into a parked car :shudder:

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halfshellvenus on April 16th, 2018 05:56 pm (UTC)

?!? When money worries are pretty much constant for you both, he ordered Amazon Fresh? WTF? Geez.

Is the scooter for sitting, or is it like a Razor scooter where you're pretty much pushing off and standing and just avoiding the pounding? Though those CAN really gather speed on the downhill. The "hump" on the back of those is a crude break, if you put a foot on it. I learned that from our kids. ;)

Spent some time on those the first time I had plantar fasciitis... :O

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xo_kizzy_xo on April 17th, 2018 12:01 pm (UTC)

It's a kneeling scooter like these. You brake by dragging your good (aka "pushing off") foot. They're not really designed for outdoor use, but I was SO cabin fever-y that I didn't care. They didn't ding me for wearing down the wheels at the rental place either.

I never knew they existed until I saw another post-op patient in the waiting room!

The downside was trying to maneuver it around the house. Old houses like mine aren't configured for much besides walking :/

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swirlsofblue on April 15th, 2018 02:21 pm (UTC)

Glad it went well and that you're recovering well *hugs*

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halfshellvenus on April 15th, 2018 07:04 pm (UTC)

Thank you! *hugs back*

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passing_through on April 16th, 2018 12:33 am (UTC)

So glad to hear your surgery went well! Yikes for leg spreading. Ouch :(

I think to be under anesthesia is an unnerving feeling. You go into a deep sleep immediately and then you're awake and something significant happened but you have absolutely no memory of it.

For some reason, I thought recovery time for a hysterectomy had shortened with the advances of medical technology. Clearly, I am mistaken. That is a long time to be inactive, especially when you're used to biking so much. Will you be home from work the entire time?

When I first started my current job in 2015 I had to write a self-evaluation for the first time in my life (I worked for Texas Instruments for 12 years and never had to write one.) and had no idea what to do or how to promote myself. Needless to say, I didn't do a good job at selling myself and my review reflected that.

Even though most of my day is spent on the phone, I spend quite a bit of time doing one-on-one customer service with people through email (I'm the only one in my group that does this) and I've learned to save and print the more complimentary emails thanking me for helping them with their issues to use as part of my review process. Last year I turned in a great self-evaluation and it was reflected in my supervisor's review of me. It took me three years but I finally learned how to write a comprehensive self-evaluation to get across how much work I actually do besides answering the phones.

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halfshellvenus on April 16th, 2018 12:51 am (UTC)

It's still up to 6 weeks, even though the surgery is usually done laparoscopically and/or up from underneath. The whole cutting in through the abdominal muscle wall part is gone, and yet...your body still knows that you stole something from it (even if it wasn't really using it anymore), and it is pissed. There will be fatigue, if not pain, for quite some time even though it seems like it should be briefer.

In my case, there was other reconstructive work done down below, which is the real reason for the 6-week hold-off. Might have been true after childbirth, too? I can't remember-- that was 18 years ago!

I won't be home from work the entire time, though I can also work from home pretty well. That saves me the 70-minute transportation overhead each day (which makes the days really long), and allows me to take a nap or a break from sitting, if I need it. Also helps with the gazillions of fiber pills/etc. I'm taking right now. Holy moly.

I hate self-evals with a passion. It's hard to promote yourself adequately (and engineers tend to shy away from it), but if you don't, you're screwed. At my company, there's also this ever-shifting bunch of side-metrics/values they want you to use in shaping your self-review, which can be mind boggling. I hate it so, so much. /o\

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bleodswean on April 16th, 2018 12:36 am (UTC)

Sorry to hear you had to endure this, K. Rest and recover. Take care of yourself.

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halfshellvenus on April 16th, 2018 12:53 am (UTC)

I'm sorry too, but if it had to be done (and it did)... better to do it now that I'm hitting my medical cap and I'm still employed. In case I really do want to retire in the next few years, when healthcare might become iffy.

This is likely to be it for me for a lonnnnnng time, unless I break a hip or something down the road. It's a bad year, in terms of medical maintenance, but most years are pretty minimal for me. As in, I avoid the doctor unless something is really wrong, and tend to be a fairly low-maintenance patient overall. ;)

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murielle on April 16th, 2018 01:19 pm (UTC)

Congratulations on making it through the surgery! Four and a half hours is truly significant. Glad to hear you're home and mending. Hugs

Edited at 2018-04-16 01:23 pm (UTC)

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halfshellvenus on April 16th, 2018 05:59 pm (UTC)

Thank you! Yes, I don't know why I thought this was a smaller surgery than it was, but the length alone says not. What was I thinking? My husband laughed when he found out I'd been thinking that...

It's better everyday, though at some point in the walking I always feel like I could use a belly sling to immobilize everything. At least that happens after the half-mile point now, instead of at the half-block point!

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peterb on April 18th, 2018 08:49 pm (UTC)

Well done thus far. Coming out of the theatre and being positive is a big step in the right direction.

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halfshellvenus on April 18th, 2018 09:52 pm (UTC)

Thank you! I'd forgotten that surgery is an 'operating theater' in the U.K. I can understand why-- it's a sort of high-pressure production for the medical staff involved, and each one is an "event."

So far, so good. More walking, off the pain meds except for Motrin. The bicycle conditioning is just sliding away, though. *cries*

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matchboximpala on April 28th, 2018 06:38 pm (UTC)

So glad to hear that all went well and you are home safe and sound. I wish you a very speedy recovery.

"in the new (New!Every!Single!Year!) format needed for the office"

Oh my. I'm supervising no more (hurrah!) but while I was I had to deal with the university changing the staff eval forms every year for the last five years. So aggravating.

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halfshellvenus on April 28th, 2018 11:03 pm (UTC)

Not just the forms, but the whole conceptual context of part of them. Which... geez, they make us do almost all the work already, could they just stop flailing around, or at least slow down the Re!In!Vention! of the performance review to maybe every few years? :O

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