The road to recovery - Day #6

Hello from the almost-one-week post surgery mark! This recovery continues to test my patience, but I can definitely say I'm not as miserable as I was when I posted on Monday. Yay for progress!

I took myself off the Norco on Monday afternoon and started to quickly feel better, although I still have a pretty bad rash that I think is related to the Norco reaction (but may just take longer to fade). The downside to going off the Norco is that my pain has remained pretty bad, especially at night. I've tried Advil, XS Tylenol, Advil PM, etc, and NOTHING touches this pain. This makes sleeping impossible and I've probably only been averaging 3-4 hours per night. Anyone who knows me knows my love for sleep and will understand how this is making me absolutely depressed and crabby.

On the plus side, my swelling is substantially decreasing and things are starting to look good! I'm still wrapped up like a sausage, with compression socks (to prevent blood clots), compression Spanx (to prevent seromas at the lipo sites) and a compression bra. While it is so uncomfortable, I know it is working so I will gut it out for another week or so. My bruising is now a bright yellow highlighter color, which is a good sign that it should start fading soon.

Continued patience is going to be the key to the rest of this recovery. I keep complaining that it's been worse than last time, but Jonathan quickly reminds me that at six days post-op last time I was still spending my nights upright in a chair. And he's right. It's all about perspective. Before my double mastectomy I expected a long and painful recovery, and thankfully I had the gift of time to spend doing nothing but getting better. This time my expectations were for a "piece of cake" surgery that would allow me to return to work in a week. Ha ha ha. That's not what I got and it's been hard to adjust those expectations. I extended my short term disability and will take another week of recovery, which will be important to regain my strength for a super busy spring/summer season at work. When I throw out any expectations, relax and focus on resting is when I can start to see my path to full recovery. This will be my job for the next week. I see my doctor on Monday and will get an update on all restrictions at that time.

In the meantime, a SUPER shout out to my biggest fan, supporter and caretaker -- Jonathan! This hasn't been easy for him either. At least last time he had some down time at work over the holidays and more help with meals delivered to our home, etc. This time he has been balancing a busy work schedule, training for an Ironman, being a full time doggy daddy and dealing with a less-than-pleasant wife and he has somehow managed to keep it all under control. I don't know what I would do without him!

Thanks as always for your continued thoughts and prayers. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

-- HER

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