Bilateral Total Mastectomy Recovery - Day 10

My open diary update.

 

It’s been 10 days since my surgery and while recovery is going well, the past 3 days have been a little rough – physically speaking.  Guess that is to be expected.  However, I really think that if I hadn’t had such a horrible allergic reaction to the meds in the hospital that I would be doing even better. It took forever to flush that crud from my body.  Can’t complain though, it could be worse.  Much worse.

 

After the drainage tubes were removed on day 6 post surgery I felt so free!  I called them my ‘alien tentacles’ because, well, I felt like an alien with those long clear tubes coming out of each side of my body draining into a bulb pouch at the end.  It was fun showering with them (not) and getting dressed (not) and sleeping (not) and… well, you get the idea.   So very thankful that Mark helped with that part, as he has with every other aspect of this life event.

 

While I’m still mentally okay with everything, physically I’m drained.  Thursday I was feeling pretty good so I did a little laundry and other miscellaneous housework.  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t zooming around by any means.  Oh no, not at all.  But I was feeling the urge to move, so I did – slowly.   I did a little of this, and then sat down.  Did a little of that, and then sat down.  Took a little nap (this has been a daily thing so far) and so on.  I even made dinner that night.  Okay, that’s a lie – sort of.  I stuck Mark’s Lean Cuisine and my GF/DF Mac-n-Cheese in the microwave.

 

Friday I was moving slow and wasn’t feeling very well.  Like I was getting sick.  I even took a few naps and still slept that night. Saturday morning I felt somewhat better so I went with Mark to do a little grocery shopping.  Halfway through – screeeeeech!  The rest of Saturday I pretty much spent in the recliner (where I’m still sleeping) and the couch (needed a different view).  Today has been up and down.  Drained, exhausted and lack energy.  To be honest, this bums me out.  But, I’ve been here before and just need to get through this hump with patience, gentleness and understanding.  Which I have and will overcome once again. 

 

There really isn’t ‘pain’ to speak of, it’s more like a soreness or bad bruise type of feeling, along with spasms here and there.  Sometimes more intense than not, but nothing to take a pain pill for.  Still have the tightness across the chest and arms, especially on the right.  Numbness in areas.  Range of motion is about 50%, but I’m working on that and have a printout of exercises to do, so that helps.  Appetite has been off and I've lost 4 pounds in 1 week.  Now I know what all was removed during surgery surely didn’t weigh that much.  Trust me.

 

Funny how I thought that I would be able to jump right back into work after this.  Obviously I’m not 100% ready, but I do feel that I’ll be able to do something.  So, I’m going to start working a little next week and see how I do.  I’m not rushing it as I’ll be at a MUCH slower pace, plus can’t handle a full day’s work yet anyway.  At least I was able to schedule the orders that I have received to date and update my customers – my very kind and patient customers – with their ship date.  And even though I still have a ton of sold and expired items that need to be relisted, I’m not stressed about it one little bit.  I’ll do that when I get more caught up.

 

So for the most part, despite how the above may sound, I am okay and truly doing much better than expected.  While I knew it wasn’t going to be a cake-walk, guess I just expected too much of myself too soon.

 

Peace, Rocki