Surgery Follow Up

Yesterday I had a follow-up appointment for my surgery. I don't have to wear the sling anymore which is great! That thing was getting really annoying, and now I could start using my right arm again. Right now it's really stiff and painful, and I lost a lot of flexibility. She suggested that I just start out slow, and work my way up but don't progress to anything crazy like swimming or shooting hoops for at least six weeks from now. I can drive now, but I have to be really careful because I can't react quickly with my arm at this point. I didn't have an x-ray yesterday because it's way too early to tell if the bone graft is taking. I will go back for my next appointment at the end of November. Then I will have an x-ray, and hopefully it will show that it's finally taking, and I could move onto strength rehab(cross fingers). In summary when the end of November comes around, my arm won't feel any better than it did before my second surgery, but if the bone is taking then I did make progression towards having a more functional arm.

As far as I feel now... I feel o.k. Not great, but I think good enough for school. Surgery definitely set me back a bit. I haven't slept well since surgery, and that's because I had a really difficult time getting off of the painkillers. I took them longer than last surgery because my hip was a lot worse this time. Yesterday the first thing my surgeon asked me was not how my arm felt, but how my hip felt. She feels bad for how hard she was on it in surgery. I still have a little bit of pain in my hip, but I have only been taking tylenol for it. Walking isn't really that bad surprisingly. I mean it was difficult to walk the first week after surgery, and I was using a cane to get around the house, but it has gotten better. It's at its worst now when I lay down and that's why my sleeping got so messed up. I was taking dilaudid every night which would put me right to sleep, but when I tried to stop taking it I couldn't fall asleep. I moved on to taking ativan for a sleep aid which worked well until one night I was in so much hip pain that I couldn't fall asleep after taking it so I decided to take dilaudid for the pain. Bad idea! The two drugs used together made me so sick the following day. Since then I haven't taken anything to help me fall asleep, and I have finally adjusted as of a few days ago. I also lost some weight which is really bad for me since I'm already pretty thin. I've been eating well the last few days, and I'm trying my best to put some of that weight back on.

I go back to school on the 25th which is this Monday. I'm a little nervous about not being physically ready for it. Like this weekend I got a haircut(first haircut since August of 2013!), and afterwards I walked around the city for a little bit. I walked half of a mile, and was sooo tired. I'll be using handicap parking so I won't be walking that distance on a daily basis for school, but it's scary that I was so tired after walking only half of a mile! Getting back to a regular schedule, and being up and about every day is going to be a hard adjustment to make physically. The first things I thought after walking that distance was, "That was pretty rough", and "I hope I'm ready for five days a week of this for the next 4 months."

Remove the physical part of the equation, and I could say there is no doubt that I'm ready to return to school. Missing the past year of school really really stunk. There is no activity from my pre-cancer life that I wanted to do more this year than to go to school. One thing that was really difficult for me going through cancer was seeing everyone else's lives keep moving forward while my own just stopped. This Monday I get to return to what I missed so much this year. I can't wait!