Day 3 Post-Op Update

We were originally told to expect only one night in hospital if all went well the following day after surgery, but yesterday was a rougher day than the nursing team and doctor hoped for.  I had higher pain levels that required IV morphine and anti-nausea medications all day, so I was a bit out of it throughout the day from that. By the afternoon my doctor switched me to oral synthetic morphine pills and I tolerated those much better than IV as the pills didn't cause me nausea, I was also finally able to go off oxygen around this time. It's so dry in here and the oxygen just makes that worse so I'm happy to be off that! The nurses were hoping I would be walking a bit by the first night or the following morning but I was only able to sit up with assistance and swing my legs off the bed the first night as I was too weak and shaky to stand. The following day I only made it to and from the washroom in the room a few times with assistance. Finally by the evening I started picking up and tried for a walk down the hallway with Kyle. I had some trouble and needed to hold on to the IV pole the whole time but the nurses were very happy to see me up and moving!!!

Dr. A said it's not unusual for women who have these kinds surgeries because of chronic pain and illness conditions to take a little more time to recover (I'm young and "look" healthy so not all expected this). Because of my slower progress he had me stay one more night. Then overnight last night I had some complications with bladder contractions and this caused some major backup and increases my risk of infection so we aren't sure if I'm going to be able to go home today now because of this. We'll have to see how this goes today. Again, this is not something they expected for someone my age. The nurses said this is a complication that is more common after surgeries in older people and keep asking me a lot about my health history. Dr A came by again this morning and reassured it's because of my chronic pelvic pain and history of Lyme disease. 

I'm feeling so much better today and am surprised I'm even writing this blog post in comparison to how I was yesterday! I'm walking with less support down the hall and able to get out of bed on my own without assistance. I had a nice long break of not needing morphine pills from last night until 11 this morning because I had such little pain. This is great!! But more moving around today has increased pain again and I needed more morphine.

I have had a lot of visitors the past two days and that has been very encouraging for me. <3 The nurses and staff have commented on how much lovely family and friends I had coming in and how bright and cheery my room looked from the beautiful flowers. Thank you so much most of all for your prayers, and also for all the love and support, well wishes, comments, messages etc.. kyle and I couldn't keep up with them all!