Post-op, days 3-6

Friday I woke up at 5:30 am in a lot of pain.  The stitches--especially those under my right breast--were hurting so bad that it was difficult to catch my breath.  I gulped down my antibiotic and fell back asleep.

Somewhere close to 7:00 am I woke back up and Greg wasn't in bed with me.  I thought that was odd, but to be honest, I was too tired to care.  Next thing I heard was the bedroom door opening and I saw (in the dark, without my glasses on) Greg walking toward me.  But in my muddled head he looked like Cara.  He flopped down on the bed next to me and it took me partway through a conversation with him to realize he WAS Cara!  She'd secretly planned a trip home (overnight--leaving the Twin Cities at midnight) to surprise me.  And it worked.  :)

We spent four days walking, shopping, getting pedicures, cooking, eating, playing games, and just hanging out as a family.  It was fabulous and did such a great job of distracting me from the healing process.


One of the cool things I realized was that I don't have to carry these cards with me anymore:

one for the port-a-cath; two for the expanders

They were for if I had to fly, go through a metal detector, or have an MRI.

~~~~~

Anyway, here I am, six days out of surgery, and on the eve of a visit to the plastic surgeon tomorrow.  I fear it won't be a great visit.

My drains are still pulling out a LOT of fluid.  If it's like my last surgery, I have to be under 10 ml in 24 hours to get them pulled.  The one on my right had 38 ml in the last 24 hours.  <sigh>  I have to wait 24 hours after having the drains pulled to shower, and I don't think I want to go to work having not showered in over a week.  So there's that.  

However, over the last four days, the pain has decreased a lot.  And it's shifted, as the first 4 days the pain was mainly in my incisions.  Now the incisions feel fine (except where the drains are pulling), but my bruising from the liposuction has gotten painful.  Still, I haven't had to take Tylenol more than once a day (not at all today!), and I've been able to gradually increase my steps, getting over 10,000 yesterday!  (Today I had a lot of company/visiting and actually didn't have as many steps)

So we'll see what tomorrow's visit with Dr. Sterkin holds.  Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. I will say one thing:  after 5 drains, 2 drains are a piece of cake!