I made it. I am laying here on the futon couch downnstairs because my Mom was worried about me crawling onto my mattress on the floor. Truth is I feel pretty damn good and I think I could have done it. The futon is perfectly comfortable (more so than most) so why bother with the crawling on the floor.
The first thing they asked me when I came out of surgery was how my leg felt. I was both pleased and relieved to say that it didn’t hurt at all. To top it off, I could barely even feel the incision in my back. They gave me morphine anyway, then I felt really good. Then they sent me home. It wasn’t even 11:00 a.m. I haven’t seen it yet but my incision is less than two inches long. They said it will hardly leave a scar, but that is hard to believe. I scare terribly.
Waking up seemed easy, after all that worry. I was having a dream and then they were waking me up. It must have been some dream because they said that I was moving enought to pull out my IV. I dont’ remember that or them putting in a new one.
My Mom came with me. Thank God for Mom’s. I think we were the first one’s to the surgery check-in. They took me back and told my Mom that she had to stay in the waiting area, until after I had my IV in. Then everyone else started showing up. Mom noticed that the nurse was letting other visitors come back with the patients. A little peeved Mom pointed this observation out and said she wanted to come back to see me. That little lady can be quite assertive, especially when it comes to her children. No matter that i am 36 years old..
After Mom came back it didn’t matter so much that I hadn’t taken my pain medicine that morning and that my leg hurt. We did a crossword puzzle and made fun of my hospital gown, head covering, and socks with no slip on them. I didn’t let her take my picture. I had her fix my sock which was askew. It has been really hard to put my socks on the last few months. That should get better now, but I’m not supposed to bend over. I think I will be wearing slip-on sandals for awhile. Not a bad choice considering the time of year.
What was the worst thing about the surgery? There really isn’t much to complain about. I have a wicked sore throat from the breathing tube they put down my throat. I have gooey sticky betadine on my backside, and I can’t take a shower for three days. But these are fairly minimal– don’t you think.
The future looks bright right now. I did take two Vicodin today, but that is all. I had some leg pain after we ran a few errands. That’s right, I was out running errands today, er yesterday. I can see myself biking and running again. Although I have to admit that skiing doesn’t appeal much to me at the moment. I would hate to go through all of this again. I’m not sure if the skiing did it, but I don’t want to test it out either. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to stop skiing. Yeah maybe I was.
One thing I like about Missouri is that it feels so much less competitive here. If I were still in Steamboat, and decided to quit skiing there would be no explaining it. But here there are so many other options for me to focus on. It seems odd that in this much more conservative place, my options would seem so open–but that is how it feels. Steamboat has it’s own version of conservative or maybe it is just repressively radical.
I’m happy. Happy to be here, pain free.
