Nat

I've been on and off work due to stress for the last month or so. For the last couple of weeks, I've been focusing a lot on self care and reducing stress. Yesterday was my first day of phased return to work with reduced hours and responsibilities, and it was a success, I'm going to work another 4 hours today and the plan is to try this 5 days a week until the xmas holidays then start ramping up in the new year.

I identified a while ago that posting here would be a nice way to get thoughts and feelings off my mind at a slower pace than Twitter and with a small audience of understanding people who I've known for a long time. However, there's been so much going on in my life that writing a first post with all the context for the rest just seemed too big and overwhelming. I decided that I'd try to write out the shortest possible 'elevator pitch' description of what's gone on, which has resulted, thanks to my tendency towards verbosity, in a reasonable length entry with a 'To Be Continued' ending...

( Getting diagnosed with ADHD and thinking I had all the answers at last )

And then I went to BiCon, Nine Worlds and Autscape...

One week ago, I was just being discharged from the hospital after my surgery, and now I'm managing to sit comfortably in a chair! Admittedly the chair becomes increasingly uncomfortable over 15 to 20 minutes, but this is a massive improvement on a couple of days ago.

Everything went perfectly to plan during the operation and so far during recovery. I've had none of the possible complications. The pain was absolutely ...abdominal for the first few days, but that was to be expected!

It's still mostly a case of lying down with my feet raised but I'm now able to sit for short periods and walk around the flat without wincing and walking like a skitsy crab. It really only hurts when I'm getting in and out of chairs and the bath now (or when I'm poking my stitches and abdominals).

I'm off the strongest addictive painkillers and down to only Ibuprofen and Paracetamol as of yesterday. This has helped my digestive system and made me considerably more comfortable as a result.

My mum's gone home now and I'm happily fending for myself after proving myself able to get in and out of the bath without assistance as of Tuesday. It's really good not to feel reliant on someone else for everything, I think I found that the most difficult part last week, worse than the pain.

Healing seems to be on schedule; my wounds aren't oozing any blood at all now and the dressings are only providing padding at this point - no more daily salty baths! Back to using all the soaps! My stitches look very neat and regular, although there's still quite a lot of bruising and swelling around them, both are visibly improving every day. The stitches have been feeling itchy and kind of spiky recently, so I'm wondering how quickly I can expect them to start to dissolve and how long they usually take to have dissolved completely.

I have another week and a half off work to recover. I get the impression that by this time next week I'll be feeling like I'm having an extended holiday, with a mandatory ban on exercising. I'm not supposed to do any heavy lifting for a few weeks after surgery, so I guess I'll be having my groceries delivered for a while...

Thanks again for everyone's messages of support last week, they really meant a lot! Now I'm heading back to my busy schedule of lying down watching endless episodes of Stargate Atlantis, Fringe and Doctor Who! ;)