Things were going well; progressing slowly but steadily forward until this afternoon. Today, I had a bad set back.<\/p>\n
There’s no way for this entry not to have some TMI but in order to explain what set me back, I need to explain what happened.<\/p>\n
Surgery of this nature leads to your bowels shutting down and being very slow to restart. It’s common for it to be four or five days before things begin moving forward again. Part of my post operative medications include stool softeners and a high fiber diet to help ease the transition when it comes. Last night, my fifth day post op, I was successfully able to use the bathroom for the first time since surgery. It was a great relief as that is an important step in ensuring there was no damage done and a sign things are working properly. It’s a recovery hurdle.<\/p>\n
That all changed, however, this afternoon when I had to go again.<\/p>\n
Things started ok, but turned bad fast. And, to put it as politely but bluntly as possible, things started…but could not be completed. I got, well, stuck. And for two hours<\/b><\/i> I struggled, in pain and crying, trying to get through the ordeal. Two hours when I have internal sutures, slippery organs and delicately healing incisions. Two hours of straining when I’m not allowed to bend over, lift anything more than 5 pounds, push, pull, or make any unnecessary exertions of ANY kind.<\/p>\n
To say it hurt and that it set me back is putting it mildly.<\/p>\n
Every bit of me hurt. My incisions hurt, my entire abdomen ached, my body hurt in places that have not been sore since day one. I felt swollen and battered and I was shaky and honestly couldn’t stop crying. I was a complete wreck. When Love came home, he had me take both my ibuprofen AND my percocet. I had gone 24 hours without the percocet and wanted to keep it that way. And, before the incident this afternoon, felt perfectly fine with just the ibuprofen.<\/p>\n
The percocet really just made me dizzy and sick and gave me a terrible headache. But it didn’t really do much to ease the deep aches and pains. So this evening, I’ve been truly miserable; drugged, muddy and still in way too much pain. I feel so weak and spent today and my stomach is a mess on top of everything else. I feel like I need to go again but I’m so gun shy from this afternoon, I can’t bring myself to do so.<\/p>\n
I can’t express how frustrated I am today or how much I feel I have regressed in my healing. I feel like I really did damage to myself and I’m really worried now about my progress and internally how I am healing. I feel sick and I’m just miserably sore and today has been an absolute nightmare. I’m emotionally a mess and feel very defeated. It seems stupid maybe to someone reading this, but the intensity of how bad this afternoon was is just something I don’t think I can fully put into words. I just feel so fragile and scared and sick. And I feel like I’ve fallen so far from where I was.<\/p>\n