Surgery Plus Ten Weeks

It’s been 10 weeks since my big operation. I thought I’d be feeling better than I am at this point. Yesterday, I was more physically active than I have been since the surgery. I walked about two miles first thing in the morning. Then I mowed the front and side yards. Self-propelled lawnmowers are great. Then after lunch and a rest, I edged the back yard with a weed eater and used electric clippers to trim a bed of Carolina jasmine that has taken over a flower bed around one of the pecan trees.

Walking does not bother me particularly, and I have been doing it pretty regularly, but after mowing I had to lie down before and after lunch. Using my upper body, especially my right arm, tires out my back pretty quickly, and I get some dull pain (in addition to the pain of fatigue) up high in my back about where I think they removed the rib. Sitting up in bed, leaning back on a stack of pillows feels really good then. I noticed in the afternoon that stooping and extending the trimmer in front of me as I cut the jasmine not only made my back tired, but made me short of breath sooner than I would have expected.

I have another kind of pain that is pretty much chronic. It is in the front where I have a bulge that is centered on the bottom of my right rib cage. The bulge is a continuation of the bulge that follows the line of incision from high on my back down and around to my side. The pain there gets “crampy” at times and is interspersed with an occasional sharp pain. It seems worse after sitting at the table and eating, so maybe it has to do with my full stomach pushing up on my nonfunctional diaphragm on the right side and stimulating the area damaged by the surgery. This pain in the front is the more troublesome of the two. The back pain can be relieved by resting my back, but the front pain can only be relieved by taking Tylenol, and then not completely. Fortunately, it is rarely very discomforting, even if it is chronic.

Our daughter, Laura, and her husband, Hunter, will arrive tomorrow night to help us prepare for and hold our garage/yard sale on Sunday and Monday. We are so grateful for the help, especially since I’ll probably have to come in and rest my back periodically.

I’ve had a call in to Scott & White this week asking for an appointment with my oncologist; however, I have not heard anything. I’ll have to call them in the morning to see what happened. Jana has a blood test on Tuesday, and she will see her doctor on Wednesday for the results. From how she’s been feeling, we expect the result to be very good.

David