Unifying Contradiction

I am officially three days (and change) post-op.

It went super well. Better than I even hoped for, honestly. The surgery itself took an hour and a half, and I was in the recovery room for just under 4 hours. Normally they only keep you in recovery for an hour or two, but because I have Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea it was protocol to keep me there longer until they were sure I was taking in enough oxygen on my own before transferring me to a surgical bed.

I expected a lot of pain based on my reading and from KK's experience, but there was next to none. On the 1 to 10 scale I spent most of the time at a 1, sometimes inching up to 2. I once overdid it drinking water (two sips was fine, three was too many!) and the pain went up to not-quite-3 for maybe 10 minutes. At first I assumed it was that I was still under the effects of the anesthesia and then under the effects of the Dilaudid pill they gave me, but after well over 15 hours it became obvious that, no, I just wasn't in all that much pain or discomfort. So, yay, I guess!

My entire nursing team consisted of people whose names began with S: Sarah, Sophie (who was a 3rd year nursing student), Samara, and Saima. Only when the day nurse came in the morning I was to be discharged did the pattern break, because his name was Dat. They were all super sweet and kind and very patient with me, since I kept asking a million questions about what they were doing, and what was that piece of equipment for, and ooh, what were they checking for with THAT gizmo? etc. Sophie in particular was super nervous because she was obviously brand new and learning, so I assured her that we would learn together, and we had loads of fun examining the equipment, asking questions, and whenever I learned something while she was away I would tell her when she got back and she'd whip out a tiny notebook and write it all down. It was super sweet, and we had a good giggle about it before her shift was over.

The least fun part of the whole thing was trying to figure out all the unspoken hospital rules (should I use the washroom when the toilet has one of those cups meant to measure urine output, or was that meant for a specific patient? Except I have to pee and there's no other washroom! I'm supposed to take walks, but where can I walk where I won't be in the way? Etc.), and I was quite glad to leave on Thursday. 

KK drove me to and from the hospital, and was somehow more wiped out than I was after all of it. She apparently overdid it by walking with me to the day surgery room and then sitting in the admittedly very uncomfortable chairs until such time as I was transferred to my bed for the night. She has spent most of the past few days napping as a result. 

I wasn't up to much for the rest of Thursday, but we did stop at the pharmacy to get my prescriptions: I have about 10 doses of Dilaudid to take as needed for pain, and an antacid that I need to take every day for the next six months. KK has impressed upon me that it is VERY IMPORTANT to take said antacid unless I want to invite a world of trouble upon myself, so I've been very diligent about it. I took one dose of Dilaudid on Thursday but didn't need one last night, which was nice. I haven't even really needed Tylenol, for the most part. I am working my way up to taking all three of my vitamin supplements, because they are freaking horse pills and rather difficult to digest, but I should be able to work them into my routine (I need to take them three times a day, God help me) with some practice and a lot of alarms set up on my phone.

Yesterday the dogs were assholes and knocked over their glass jar of treats, which shattered all over the tile floor of the kitchen. KK very kindly drove me to town after her work day was over, and we stopped by the pharmacy so I could pick up some milk of magnesia (a nurse from the hospital called and recommended I pick some up "just in case"), and then I popped into Canadian Tire for some bags for our kitchen compost bin since we were almost out. KK went to PetValu to pick up new dog treats (they're the dogs' reward for going into their crates at night like good girls) and I went to the Dollarama next door to pick up a new (plastic) jar for the treats along with a couple of new pairs of reading glasses since the dogs ate one of mine and another broke very randomly the night before my surgery. It was the weirdest thing: I picked them up as normal and the arm just *fell off* like it was an injured starfish. No idea what happened there. *shrug*

Unsurprisingly, the house was in the same or even slightly worse shape than when I left on Wednesday morning. Thursday I contented myself with unloading and then re-loading the dishwasher, and yesterday I didn't do all that much except clean up the broken jar the dogs so generously provided. I did a few more dishes and put away the vacuum sealer I'd forgotten to put away before surgery (oops), and that was about it, as I was still feeling pretty tired after the surgery.

Today I was a lot more productive, but I'm still moving in slow motion. I took a shower, which felt amazing after not being "allowed" to shower for a couple of days to give my incision sites the chance to heal.

I got more dishes done, broke down a bunch of boxes for the recycling on Monday (it's a fibre pick-up day!), collected the garbage, and managed to clear a portion of the front deck so it looks a little less like hillbilly hoarders live here. I also cleaned my bathroom, which I should have done before my surgery but I kind of ran out of time (oops). At least it's clean and sparkly now! I checked on the quail and changed out their food and water and gave them all a generous helping of mealworms as a treat and as a small apology for not doing it yesterday (I did check on them and their food and water levels were fine, have no fear, I just feel guilty about them anyway). I also washed the incubator and put it away along with the heat plates for next year when I'd like to start incubating more chicks again. I won't be incubating any during the winter, it just seems like a bad idea to do it when it's super cold outside. 

KK also left me a surprise in the form of a clogged kitchen sink which she'd clearly tried to fix using a plastic plumbing snake, which then got suck in the drain, and she just... left it there for me to find without telling me about it. I couldn't dislodge it (she'd rammed it in all the way, and theoretically I am not supposed to lift, push or pull more than 10lbs for the next month), and when I asked her about it she said she was hoping the sink would drain before she tried again. I had drained the sink in my attempts to dislodge the thing, so she tried again--and broke it off inside the drain. So now I have to call a plumber on Monday to get it taken out by a professional. I am not super impressed. *heavy sigh* If I didn't know better, I'd swear she was a man, given the amount of weaponized incompetence she seems able to wield at a moment's notice. The only difference is that, in this case, I didn't ask her to unclog the sink, so I guess she did try? I don't know.

I've sent out the announcements for Quaker Meeting tomorrow, and I did take a dose of Dilaudid tonight because I may have overdone it a tad today, and I was quite sore to say the least. My main goal is to not be in pain so I can get some sleep, and hopefully tomorrow I will be recovered. I still want to try to finish cleaning up the kitchen. KK said she'd help me with that today but ended up taking a four and a half hour nap instead, and there's only so much I can do at one time while I'm still recovering from surgery. Yes, in theory I should be resting/taking it easy, but if I don't get this shit done no one will, and the house will continue to deteriorate, so I'm tackling things in smallish increments and hoping for the best. Tomorrow I am planning on moving the last batch of quail that I incubated to the hutches in the garage, which will allow me to clean up and break down the brooder and put that away for the season as well. I will probably have to buy a second brooder for next year, because I discovered that while it can comfortably hold six quail, eight almost-grown quail are very cramped inside it and so they are all having very gentle squabbles with each other about food and water and mealworms. But yes, not having the brooder on my kitchen counter will save me so much space! I can't wait.

I must say, I can totally understand why people get addicted to Dilaudid. Pain? Never heard of her! I think that I'm still pretty safe since I've only had four 1mg doses in the past four days (I got a dose right before leaving the hospital on Thursday when they heard I had a one-hour car ride ahead of me).

Anyway, that's what's happened with me in the last few days. I hope you're all doing well, and I will catch you on the flip side, friends!