Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Surgery Shenanigans!

 
I can't complain about how my recovery went after surgery.  I could have gone without the re-opening of my incision due to infection but in reality, I felt 10 times better after this was done.  The day that he cut it open, he told me that it would take approximately 8 weeks for it to completely heal.
 
  I had an appointment exactly 4 weeks from him leaving a large hole in my stomach and got completely cleared!  Cleared----never have to come back!  It had completely scabbed over/healed two days prior to my appointment.  Now, his "looking good" and my "looking good" certainly didn't match up but he said it would take a year to fully heal and rest assured, I could have plastic surgery on it after that year was up......I think I'll pass.  (We drove down to Iowa City, sat in the waiting room for 10 minutes, talked to the nurse for 5, and saw him for 5.  Waste of time but oh well....Got the A-Okay to start back at Next Level Extreme Fitness and couldn't have been more excited!)
 
Two weeks after being discharged from the hospital, I was told I could start "walking".  Meaning, I could go to The W and walk around the track.  1 day of this  and I was over it.   I tried out the treadmill and felt really good.  I wasn't supposed to get my heart rate up too much due to there being a large hole in my stomach that could bleed.  Blah, blah, blah. 
 
I couldn't believe how much better I felt when I got back into my groove and into the gym every day.  Now, I had to take a nap immediately after getting home because it wore me out but it was worth it.  My competitive nature had me mad at myself for only making it 20 minutes that first week or so and I had to be reminded that I just had had major surgery.
 
After a few days of walking, I began to test out the jogging.  A couple seconds here and a couple seconds there until I could do a whole minute at a time.  Gavin typically got on my case and told me to stop but I'd get sneaky and take the dogs out and jog around out in the field with them.  I was feeling good!  I actually called my doctor and gave him the low down that he needed to say it was okay for me to run. :-)  (Kind of asked....kind of begged!)  While he wasn't exactly thrilled, he told me I could as long as I wasn't over doing it!  Whoop whoop!  That same week, I went shopping with my mom and had to go home after an hour I was so wiped out.  I'm pretty sure the surgeon took out my energy reserve with my appendix.
 
Fast forward 3 months after surgery and my scar actually looks pretty good, I'm doing well, and am back to everything.  Doesn't mean I like the looks of it and will be totally comfortable rocking the swimming suit, but it is losing its color and releasing from the tissue under it.  I'm starting to have a slight problem though.  SCAR TISSUE!
 
It hurts. It continues to spread. And now some of it is getting really hard and feels like a saw under my skin.  I saw a PT a month or so ago who showed me how to massage it, which I do every morning.  But man or man, that stuff is relentless and continues to grow.  Anyone ever felt marbles under their skin?!  Seems to by my case.