surgery

Three things:

• Another decent night of sleep, per my Garmin Forerunner 265. More importantly, I felt I slept well.
• My HRV status has, for the first time since surgery, moved from Low/Unbalanced to Balanced. Woo. Wondering what HRV is? Check here.
• By default my Forerunner is set to 150 “intensity minutes” per week, which is a macho way of saying “enough effort to count as some kind of exercise”. During a typical week, I will triple this goal. Since surgery, it has mostly been at zero, but not this week. As of today, Wednesday, I have 24 intensity minutes (from walking briskly)!
• I successfully had a nap yesterday. Yes, this counts as recovery because until now I haven’t really been able to comfortably nap. And I realize this is now four things.

To celebrate my intensity minutes, here is an intense cat:

Also, dreaded sneezes.

Last night the itchiness/numbness eased enough that I had a relatively normal sleep again after the one-night hiccup. Hooray for that.

The reason for the change, at least in my trying-to-be-logical mind, is: healing! The surgery area is reaching a point where everything is starting to stitch back together, and this is making the area feel tight. Not in a painful way or anything, but it feels different, less surgery-y and more like sore muscles?

Dreaded sneezes: Sneezing still lights up the whole area like an atomic bomb and I hate sneezing. I sneezed once today, that was enough. I should add the discomfort from the sneeze fades after a few seconds. The knowledge that a sneeze is imminent is, in a way, worse than the actual sneeze itself.

I have an appointment now with my surgeon for a follow-up on June 18th, just one day short of four weeks post-surgery and when I may potentially be on the cusp of full recovery.

In that spirit, here is an energetic cat, plus a potato:

And yes, I plan on doing daily updates post-surgery until I feel what passes for “normal.” I’m actually hoping this will be soon!

But it will not be today.

Three things:

• I had my post-surgery CT scan today. I showed up early, the got me in early, and I was done before my actual appointment time. Nice! The process was pretty much the same as the other CT scans I’ve had. The IV went in on the first try, always a nice bonus. Hopefully everything in my chest looks OK and the scan doesn’t reveal an incubating alien or something.
• My sleep score went from 76 to 43 last night. Yoinks! I think this was related to the itchiness/new sensation (not to be confused with the INXS song) in my chest/surgery area. Basically I kept flipping the covers on and off, because when they were on, I was cozy, but the fabric also felt weird and slightly uncomfortable against my chest. Maybe it’ll go better tonight.
• I am probably back to about 95% of my usual walking pace. There was something else that feels mostly normal now, but it’s so normal I can’t remember it.

No cat today, but enjoy my right arm, post-CT scan:

Good news: My Garmin watch gave me a decent sleep score last night (76/100) and all stats were rated fair or better. More importantly, I felt I slept better.

Not as good news but also not bad news, really: Today I started feeling off and at first it was hard to determine why. Fatigued from yesterday’s birding? Maybe? But as the day went on, I realized that it’s probably just my body continuing to heal and the unexpected consequences of it. After the surgery, an area of my chest has been numb, due likely to some never damage, but in the past few days the healing has progressed to where some of these areas are starting to get more sensation back. Combine this with moving almost completely off all pain relief, and I am suddenly feeling more pain again. Over the next few days I’ll moderately increase the Tylenol, mostly to help with sleep.

Today’s cat is fabulous.

Not the itch to do things I can’t quite do yet (like running), but an actual physical itch. Specifically, my chest is starting to get itchy. At first, I thought it might be the chest hair growing back on the left side that was shaved, but the itchiness of that already came and went–though it could be back. I don’t shave my chest often enough to know how this goes.

Rather, this just seems to be the chest generally feeling itchy and I think it’s a sign of recovery, actually, with sensation returning in areas that were numb following the surgery. It also seems to kick in more when I’m moving about.

Today, I went birding and didn’t feel particularly limited, except when holding my camera up for an extended period with the telephoto lens. Then I’d get a little tired. Overall, it was fine.

I also had more improved sleep last night after a bit of a tactical error–I hadn’t taken into account the removal of the sutures leading to some temporary discomfort in bed, so it was back to DRUGS for one more night (one Extra-Strength Tylenol, plus the heated beanbag).

In all, a good evening and day as I officially pass the halfway mark of the shorter full recovery window (four weeks)¹The longer one is six weeks. I like to think I’m not going to require six weeks..

…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: