quarridors | Entries tagged with surgery

This morning marked 2 weeks since I had my gall bladder removed. Tomorrow lunch time will be 2 weeks since I was discharged from hospital after my blood pressure recovered.

Recovery has been going very well. I had my discharge call from the surgery department yesterday. It was about 20 minutes long and we talked through various aspects. They were very happy with my progress and I found the call pleasant, useful and reassuring.

( Recovery and next steps in more detail... )

Because I work from home at a desk, I was allowed to start doing phased return a week ago. I've managed at least 3 hours work every working day for a week with 4 or 5 hours most days. As of tomorrow I'm going up to virtually full time (I have 3 flexitime hours in hand from before my surgery so I can have a longer lunch and an afternoon nap). I'm glad I've been allowed back to work because I'd have been very bored indeed by now.

My mum came to visit this afternoon and did some of the chores and housework that I'm not allowed to do yet. I now have a cleaner flat, clean bedding, a fully stocked fridge and some more portions of home cooked food in the freezer, which should keep me going for another week or so. I'm very glad to have patient and helpful parents who live nearby to come and help when I'm in recovery.

So generally recovery has been all going at or ahead of the schedule I was told to expect, with no unexpected difficulties. The only hitch at any point has been the low blood pressure on the first day and that had been resolved by midnight.

Just to update those in the know but who don't follow me on Twitter:

I had laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery to remove my gall bladder on Tuesday. It had multiple gallstones and scarring and had caused me a few painful attacks in the past and was possibly the cause of some of my longterm digestive problems, so it made sense to have it removed. It wasn't emergency surgery, I'd had several weeks notice. The advice was that it was better to have it removed before it became an emergency and that most people can eat normally afterwards.

( Extra details about how surgery and recovery went... )

I'm meant to be signed off work for 2 weeks but as I work from home sat at a desk, I'm allowed to start doing 'phased return' after a week. I think I'll need this because I'm already quite bored of doing very little all day. But also I'd spending the majority of my afternoons asleep so I won't be full time.

My dressings are supposed to come off at lunch time today. Being open to the air is good for healing. If I have any problems, I have a second set of dressings. I think, other than the hypotension on day one, everything's been going well. I have a surprisingly large number of friends who've had the surgery so I had a good idea of what to expect and what life's like afterwards.

Looking back at my 2012, I went through some pretty major life changes and made some significant achievements, despite the year mainly feeling like putting my life on hold.

( January, February and March: Activism, Fandom, Surgery and Stress... )

( April, May and June: Autism Acceptance and putting my life on hiatus... )

( July, August and September: Conferences, Gender Clinic Graduation and Diagnosis... )

( October, November and December: Introspection, Intersections and Reformatting... )

Having written and proofread the above, 2012 feels like a year where I purposely put everything on hold, 'reinstalled' my identity and hopefully set myself up with a freshly formatted stable home and social life on which to build sustainable new routines, projects and relationships from a position of greater self-knowledge.

The changes I've already made seem to have helped with problems like low level chronic fatigue, which I take as an extremely positive sign that I'm doing the right sorts of things. Next year I'm hoping to work productively with the specialists at Nottingham City Asperger Service on helping me to understand myself and develop better strategies for maximising my strengths and working around my difficulties. I'm also planning to take some of my existing projects out of hiatus and take them in a new, more authentic intersectional direction. I'm feeling optimistic.

Hopefully 2013 will be the year I take my life out of hiatus.

I saw the gender clinic for my surgery follow up today. That's going to be the last time I should ever need to see them!

After getting blocked by Canterbury PCT in 2002 and having started out in 1999, it feels good to have finally successfully got everything I needed out of the system. I was extremely nervous and felt very vulnerable when I submitted myself to Nottingham Gender Clinic as nonbinary in 2009, but my psych was friendly and cooperative, understanding and helpful right up to the last moment. I'm regretting not asking for a parting hug rather than a handshake! :)

It felt so good to have seen a gender psych for the last time that I celebrated with ice cream :D

Two weeks since surgery and visible bruising has gone completely, swelling is much reduced and the dissolvable stitches are starting to work their way out. It's more accurate to talk about 'scar tissue' rather than 'stitches' now. Right now I'm only on ibuprofen with paracetamol reserved from break out pain (usually when I've done something unwise).

Walking any distance becomes painful, I still can't sleep on my side or front, and I still can't sit upright in a chair for long periods (it gets uncomfortable after about an hour), especially if I have to lean forward. But things are getting noticeably better every day or two. I'll be going back to work on Monday.

I'm very happy to have apparently avoided all the possible complications I was told to expect! :)

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! ;)

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Nat

Entries tagged with surgery

Two weeks on from gall bladder surgery

Recovering from laparoscopic gall bladder removal

My 2012

Graduating the Gender Clinic

Surgery recovery continues

Surgery recovery

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December 2016

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