Health

…a body that’s 100% suture-free!

The procedure was mostly straightforward. I doffed my shirt and sat on the table in the doctor’s exam room, where a nurse would perform the actual suture removal. There were two sutures, one of which was green and quite long, so super conspicuous. That one was removed without issue.

The second one was a bit more complicated because after two weeks, my body had healed so efficiently it had started to cover over the suture, subsuming it like the Borg. In this case, resistance was only fleeting. Noting that she could not “dig around” she called in my doctor, and he finished the job by indeed digging around (no pain, just a little tugging) and got the second suture out. The other sutures, which were dissolvable, were both confirmed already out, so I am now suture-free, and all three incisions were declared to be healing normally.

I was advised to apply a little Vaseline to the chest tube area to help the healing and to not scrub any incision site for at least another week.

My sleep score last night was 70/100, the highest since surgery, so woo for that. I felt I slept pretty adequately. I hope the sleep continues to improve and get back to normal.

I am ready for normal again.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost two weeks since I had my surgery. The time has–no, wait, it really is hard to believe, but not because the time has flown by, since it actually feels like it’s slowed down, where each day is an entire adventure unto itself, like I was eight years old again (but without the bouncy, elastic eight-year-old body).

Still, there have been tangible signs of progress and for these I am glad:

• Sign #1: I adjusted my side of the bed so that the Head was at 35 (of 100). This allowed me to sleep on my back and my right side, while still providing a bit more elevation than usual. And I actually slept! The best part, possibly but not definitely related to the bed, was that my chest no longer had that horrible gravelly feeling each time I woke up and had to breathe in and breathe out, as one does. In other words, my lungs were no longer requiring a cough every hour to keep clear. They are starting to keep clear unaided!
• Sign #2: SPIRO-BALL success. I’ve been using the spiro-ball daily, watching my lung capacity improve from 1,000 ml, then to 2,000 and the other day to 3,000. This morning, I got the ball all the way to the top at 4,000 ml. Not for long, but it got there. Woo.
• Sign #3: After walking around Lafarge Lake this afternoon (photo below), my watch gave me a Recovery Time Delayed advisory–something it normally only does after a run. But I’ll take it, because it means I’m being active and healthy and stuff.
• Sign #4: Another day free of pain relievers.

The 10 pound lifting limit still makes buying groceries a challenge, though. Food is heavy, man.

Lafarge Lake, this afternoon:

And here is a cat that I met on the sidewalk a few years back. She would plop in front of me until I gave her sufficient skritches.

Last night I removed the bandages covering my two incisions after getting the OK from my doctor. They still have the “dissolving” sutures in place, but maybe they will more readily move on to suture heaven now that they are unencumbered.

Today I have not taken any Tylenol for the first time since release from the hospital on May 23. So far, things are OK, though the incision and surgery areas are both…sensitive? If I sit still, it’s fine, if I move, it becomes more noticeable. Not enough to reach for the Tylenol, just enough to note.

I slept a wee bit better last night and my chest did not feel as congested by morning. I’m still probably 5 or 6 days away from something passing for a normal sleep if this rate of improvement continues.

Anyway, I am recovering, but I think I’m hitting that point where you just want the recovery part to be done, not ongoing. I will consult my inner Zen to centre myself and accept that I must be patient.

Here is a Zen cat:

Sneezing is neither fun nor exciting. But I did it twice today, and it was a sign of my improving recovery from the surgery. I’d sneezed previously, but they were tiny kitten sneezes. Today, they were more normal sneezes, meaning my body did not try to shut them down because it could handle them.

Sneezing is remarkably violent on your body, given what it is. The second one especially lit up my surgery area, albeit briefly, and I recovered quickly. Nothing got pulled or stretched in horrible ways.

I slept last night without the beanbag and had no neck pain, hooray. I also was able to sleep on my right side, which felt more comfortable, and I believe this let me fall asleep faster.

Despite these things, my watch claimed my sleep was worse than the night before, but I am unconvinced. I’m not just going with my gut here, but as many other organs as possible, and they’re telling me my sleep was OK. Not great, but OK.

I took a nap in the afternoon and felt kind of blah afterward. This is normal and a reminder why I generally do not nap. If I need to rest, I’m better just laying down and closing my eyes without snoozing.

My overall energy level and movement continue to improve. I am eager for Friday to get the suture removed and finally stop worrying about accidentally yoinking it out somehow.

Today’s cat is meditative.

Last night I proactively set up in bed with the heated beanbag wrapped around the base of my neck acting as a kind of warm brace. And it worked! My neck was not sore at all the entire night. Did my sleep score improve? Yes! Was it good? No!

It was 57/100, which still counts as Poor (Fair starts at 60), but only two stats were poor and Deep sleep was actually rated Excellent.

The downsides of this sleep technique:

• It still took me multiple hours to fall asleep. This is even weirder when you consider how much less sleep I’ve gotten over the past week. I should be feeling more tired than I am and, barring pain, should conk out quicker. But whenever I normally go to sleep, I always start on my right side, which currently is not workable without issues, so maybe the on-back position is just not conducive to me nodding off.
• With the pseudo-neck brace in place, I really don’t move during bedtime. By the time my alarm went off this morning, just breathing in and out was uncomfortable due to stuff accumulating in my lungs and not getting shifted around by my usual night twitchings and shiftings. This can be fixed by coughing just enough to bring me wide awake.

I’m going to try without the beanbag tonight and see if the neck reacts poorly. If it does, I’ll pop in the ol’ bag right away and deal with it [insert meme here]. But being able to sleep in a normal(ish) position without pain or aids or whatever, would be dandy.

The other item of note today was my lower back getting sore. You may recall I have not had surgery on my lower back. I think it’s just because today I was moving, bending and stretching more like I normally would and my lower back was all, “Whoa, let’s not get crazy here, 10 days is not four weeks!” So I’ve spent the evening lifting nothing heavier than a glass of water.

Rooting through my cat GIFs, I find this one speaks to me tonight.

Last night was bad. I went to bed without taking any pain medication, which would be fine at this point, except for Cursed Neck™. Any time I lay on my back (the only way I can really sleep right now) the lower left part of my neck starts to hurt like [long string of expletives here]. This happened last night and for multiple hours I just laid there, hoping that maybe my body would exhaust itself and shutdown or something.

Instead, I took a Tylenol and a Hydromorphone pill (the opioid that came with the sheet warning of ADDICTION and DEATH) and had Jeff warm up the old neck beanbag thing, which is basically a long cloth tube full of beans that can get toasted up in the microwave. I wore this around the back of my neck, helping to relieve the pain, while also serving as a makeshift brace that elevated the neck.

It was getting close to 3 a.m. but it worked, and I actually slept decently for the next six or so hours. I’ll be using the beanbag again tonight, but at regular bedtime.

Meanwhile, I broke my admittedly short new 10,000-step streak yesterday, because I felt worn out. Today, I wanted to get some actual exercise and walked to Burnaby Lake and back. It went fine! The only time I felt myself straining was coming up from Lower to Upper Hume Park, which I did in one go. I was a little winded at the top.

I have 15,411 steps as I type this, the most since the surgery, so woo for that.

Here’s hoping the next week is all about improvements and feeling peppier.

A few photos from my walk, this time using the built-in WP gallery:

I believe I’m still recovering but the dramatic pace of the first few days, where I could see clear, tangible improvements every day, is now giving way to more subtle signs of getting better.

Also, one of those involuntary body reactions I’d been fearing happened today: a sneeze.

But it didn’t go the way I expected. What I expected was a huge, typical sneeze and attendant pain as my chest expanded uncomfortably and suddenly against the surgery area. Instead, the sneeze got up to that point, then sort of defused itself, and instead I just made a tiny kitten-like sneeze. This happened twice, and it was kittens both times.

A week later I am feeling more of the general soreness and achiness, possibly a combination of reduced pain medication and sensation returning at least partially to some of the numbed area (yes, I have numbness in my chest a week later. I’ve been advised via handout that this could end up being permanent).

On the plus side, there are times when I’m sitting and reading and can almost forget I had the surgery. It doesn’t last long, but I feel it is happening more often now.

Next Friday the suture in the chest comes out and the following Monday I have a follow-up CT scan of my chest area, to make sure things look OK. Sometime in around then I will likely get the results of the pathology report on the li’l mass itself. Hopefully it turns out to be nothing more than an inert lump.

And now, a random cat:

As promised, here’s my positive spin on the side effects of surgery!

Top 5 Most Favourite Things about Surgery (6 days later)

1. Daily incremental improvements in your stamina, sleep and health are rewarding, especially if you’re a stats nerd.
2. Being forced to slow down gives time to be more thoughtful, introspective and observant. This came into focus yesterday when I went for a walk and tried my usual pace (oops), then slowed down and really just took my time and soaked in the pleasantness of a warm spring day and the inviting breeze along the river trail.
3. The breathing exercises help reinforce good daily habits. Who knew this would be a side effect of coughing every hour?
4. Sympathy! It’s nice to know people care.
5. In a weird way, despite the pain and discomfort, the break from routine is refreshing. Sometimes change is good, or at least tolerable.

Bonus item, at least as of the first six days:

• Losing weight. I’ve dropped about four pounds. This is, I think, largely due to two things:
  • Less snacking.
  • Eating healthier food that doesn’t go straight to the proverbial hips.
  • A combined loss of fat and muscle due to much lower physical activity (I normally run three days a week and usually walk 4 km to and from the place where I run).

No doubt I’ll be as spry as this cat in just a few short weeks!

In a list, because I like lists:

• Today is my fourth day after surgery and third full day of being home.
• All gauze has been removed, the only stuff left is what’s covering the two incisions and I’ve been instructed to let that stuff come off on its own, no touching!
• The left side of my chest remains weirdly puffed out. Not in a horrible, wrong way, just in a typical after-surgery way.
• My sleep has improved each night, with my Garmin Forerunner (est. 80% accuracy) giving scores of 10, 28 and 48 the past three nights (out of 100).
• My left shoulder was still giving me the business when laying down as of last night. I’m hoping that improves starting tonight. I’ll probably try sleeping in a more upright position.
• My energy and stamina are improving. I hit 10,000 steps for the first time since the surgery, woo. I can climb flights of stairs without needing to rest, though I am definitely feeling it more when I get to the top.
• I can get the SPIRO-BALL past the 2,000 ml mark now, albeit briefly.
• I was able to do some of my usual chores without much difficulty.
• I secretly fear pulling out a suture.
• When I reach up for something I now do it with my right hand more or less automatically.
• 10 pounds is the max I can carry and I’m not really sure how much that is, other than probably not a lot? When I did my laundry, I carried it to the washer in three trips.
• Showering is still a bit of a nuisance, but manageable.
• I’m still doing breathing exercises and coughing every hour.
• I can yawn properly now. The first few days I could do something I like to think of as a micro-yawn.
• I found this image that might explain why my right wrist was sore after the operation, because the arm was likely trussed up for about two hours like this:

I’m pretty sure running will be the last or close to last normal activity I resume. The incisions should be fully healed in a few weeks and I’ll see how frisky and energetic I’m feeling then.