Surgery recap 2
Like I said, surgery takes it out of you.  I had most of yesterday to post this but steam was in short supply.  I did manage to walk up and down several flights of stairs, remove my bandage and see the awesome (gory) glory of my newly forming scar, and become overly self conscious that my Mother has played more hours of video games in our time here than I have. 

I'm serious.  Please come take her away from Solitaire and Mahjong.  I have been trying to talk her in to taking walks and going to the library... anything... but she won't go. 

On to the fun!  There is one picture below this cut of my wound that might be considered icky by some.  If you don't want to see it, scroll till you see a bunch of xxxxxx and then use your periphery to scroll past the image.  It isn't bad, just a little blood under some butterfly bandages, but I figure it's fair to give warning.



Once they had me in the room, the drugs convinced me to take it easy for a while.  There is not much arguing with drugs. 





I was a bit (a lot) groggy, but snapped this photo about 10 minutes after I got into the room.  The nurses thought I was very odd for doing so, but they do not understand us male models.  We need to capture the emotion for emulation later. 



They had vaseline around my eyes.  Yuck.


My sumptuous feast about 2 hours after waking up was a liquid diet.  Jello is close enough.  I was reminded (by myself and others) not to wolf that stuff down but dang I was hungry.  It all stayed and I asked for seconds (and thirds)... eventually they cut me off and said I'd need to wait til tomorrow to eat real food.  I asked for drugs so I'd get sleepy and forget about being hungry.  My tummy was quite displeased at the lack of full.





I show some decent battle damage here.  They have to insert a Bigass Needle into your artery while you're asleep so they can monitor blood pressure and quickly move drugs into you.  They wait til you're out to put the thing in and take it out before you come back.  I suppose it's considered "traumatic".  This precaution is fine by me based on the size of the hole the needle made.  EeeeeEEeEEeeeeeeeee.





Angel and Andy sent me flowers!  This was an awesome way to wake up the day after surgery.  I kept them on my slidey tray next to the bed so they were visible at all times. 






Here I am on Day Zero's second walk.  My first few laps were on a walker.  After a 2 hours break, I went out on crutches.  No sweat.  Also notice the sexay squeezer socks.  Very trendy right now in other places than where you live. 

My therapist was kind enough to administer some taping to the back of my gown to preserve modesty.  He's a good egg.  I imagine he knew that were I to show off hints at the goods then the whole nursing staff would shut down and follow me.  He was probably right.






They changed my bandages on Day 2. This is the clean set.  I'll show the semi-gross shot next - you have been warned.







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This isn't terribly gross, but the clotting is pretty significant.  The whole thing is about 8 or 9 inches from end to end.  More invasive than a hip replacement's surgery but ultimately less invasive in the long run due to preservation of the original parts, this kind of operation is pretty popular for young folks like me.  We don't know how long it'll last, exactly, but all signs point to a good long time if not indefinitely.  10 years ago, when I started having problems, this wasn't even an option yet.  Science: it works, bitches.









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Now that I have photos of my bum on the internet, I expect other people to follow suit like last time.  If they're really good, I may put up an "after" shot once I have sealed everything up.  Show you both scars (the first one is almost invisible now, it's awesome). 




Finally, here I am with my favorite nurse, Mirtha.  She was always happy, called me 'sweetie', and came to see me even on the days when she wasn't assigned to me.  She had a lot of joy in her eyes and made sure she shared it.  She's also something of an aviation buff so we had plenty to talk about.

Before I left, she made me promise to write a letter and send it to her on the 6th floor back at St. Vincent.  She looked me square in the eye and said, "You don't get to just say, 'I'll write,' to me - you have to do it."  I told her I understood and that she should give me a couple of weeks.  I'm going to send her something next week when I graduate to cane-only walking. 




 

Many more thoughts on pain, walking, and a life spent no more than 20 feet from your mother at any given time - but those will need to wait until later.  My exhausted level is frustrating to me... but it is slowly getting better.  I suppose I should give myself a little slack but I'm not terribly good at that. 

I should be running marathons by now!

Well, close to it anyway.  According to the literature that came home with me, I'm at least a week and possibly two weeks ahead of schedule on recover.  I was operated on one week ago today... and now I barely need crutches.  My pain is so low was to be non-existent... and I can function like a normal person in bursts (and then it's nap time). 

Progress: I have it.  In truckloads.