Health

I ran, as mentioned in the previous post, and the good news is the surgery didn’t seem to have any effect. After 42 days off, I was slow, but that’s because I took 42 days off.

I also had a respectable sleep last night.

These things please me.

Here is a cat looking pleased.

The plan is to write daily posts until I reach the six-week mark (the end of the “full recovery” window), or 42 days, which will be six days hence. After that, I’m going to just chime in whenever I feel something has changed/shifted or revealed itself as an alien.

As for my current thoughts, sleep is still very uneven, per my Forerunner watch, but it may be wrong, so I take what it says with the proverbial grain of salt.

Here is a cat snoozing.

Changed the colour scheme of this blog, that is, back to a warmer, softer look for summer. No AI was used, I handcrafted each colour using a time-honoured artisanal process. OK, I actually just selected a few colours I’d used before. I suspect I’ll do another major revamp of the site before the summer is over.

Meanwhile, my 4-6 week “full recovery” window maxes out at 42 days, so I have exactly one week to go. I can now say I am confident that I will not have recovered from all nerve damage/numbness in the next seven days, which is a bit of a bummer, but I can sneeze without hurting myself, so I’ll take what I can get.

Maybe I should look up artisanal ways of stimulating nerve endings back to life.

Here is a graceful cat:

(post surgery)

I did not run.

This was the first day after a batch of very warm days (around 30°C) when the temperature was relatively mild, only getting up to about 20 degrees. It was cloudy, too, making it an ideal day to try a short run to test the, uh, running waters.

But I balked. I got up early after a fairly poor sleep, and did some things in the morning, then just kind of faded for the rest of the day.

I don’t think it’s related to the surgery, at least not physically. The weather looks showery tomorrow and I like running in the rain about as much as a house cat likes taking a bath, so it seems unlikely I’ll resume jogging tomorrow. But…maybe.

Here is a cat running:

This almost certainly has nothing to do with the surgery, but for some reason I am really up in the hizzy with the phlegm. Is it related to seasonal allergies? The weather? Male menopause? Some other mysterious condition that will eventually be revealed in an unrelated CT scan? I don’t know, but I’m going to check with my doctor, because I’ve learned not to fool around with this stuff anymore.

Meanwhile, my body continues to increment toward normal, if you don’t count the phlegmpocalypse happening in my throat. I can now go through most of the day without thinking about how the surgeried parts of my body feel. This is actually more significant than it sounds and is a good thing indeed.

Here is a cat buffing the floor.

Specifically, while I am seeing constant, if incremental improvements (incisions continuing to heal, puffiness around the big one reduced substantially) I am leaning more toward it taking additional weeks to return to normal…if that happens. Because I am also leaning toward some minor but permanent nerve damage in my chest area. I guess I’ll find out eventually.

Also, based on direct observation, my chest hair grows back approximately 1,000 times slower than my facial hair.

Here is a cat with a beard.

The thing I notice after one month¹Assuming you don’t count months that have 28, 29 or 31 days post-surgery is that I am going longer without thinking about my new scars, the still-lingering sensitivity of the surgery area or other stuff related to the surgery. I just do my usual, everyday routines. This is good. I even have 293 Intensity Minutes for the week. Intensity Minutes sounds very macho, but in my case, it’s just brisk walking.

I want to run tomorrow, but it’s supposed to get up to 30°C, which is pretty stupid hot, but we’ll see.

(Please see the previous post for your semi-daily cat image.)

I went birding today. It was fine. I have 22,000 steps as I type this and for most of the day the surgery area was a non-factor. It’s slightly itchy right now, and I’ll almost certainly need to sleep with the covers down due to its ongoing sensitivity, but it is what it is.

Still unsure if I’ll write these reports daily going forward, but here’s a pigeon preview from today’s birding. I’ll probably post the write-up and shots tomorrow as me tired.

No, I am not!

But to be fair, the info I got on release from the hospital said 4–6 weeks for full recovery and in most ways that matter, I am now fully recovered.

What remains is the area of my chest where the surgery was done is still a bit sensitive to touch/sensation. The incisions are healing, though I’m closer now to fully healed/seeing what kind of cool scars I’ll end up with. I am mostly sleeping normally again, though I tend to keep the bedding off due to the aforementioned sensitivity.

I bought groceries today and didn’t calculate in my head how much everything weighed to make sure I wasn’t over the 10 pound (4.5 kg) limit.

I have 199 intensity minutes this week, all from my usual brisk walking pace. That’s nice.

I’m pretty much back to normal. I’m not always thinking about the surgery or its after-effects. I look forward to my first run (soon).

The daily reports may continue, or they may not. On the one hand, it keeps me posting. On the other, there’s little to report now, and maybe I could start posting more about other things as my mind turns to just living my life more or less normally again.

In the meantime, one (actually, two) more cats.