Recovery

It has been a couple of weeks since I have last written but I thought the holidays were a good time to take a break. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of events and emotions but I think I am finally in a good state of mind to blog about it.

The holidays were pretty typical with volunteering at the Bay Center for gift wrapping where proceeds go to the Mustard Seed, last minute present shopping, awkward social gatherings, huge family dinners and the rest is history. We've been dealing with a lot of emotion lately because on Christmas night my beautiful labrador, Leo, was attacked by an unruly german shepherd on our last walk before bedtime. Logistics and by-laws will be the death of the situation but for a long story short, Leo is okay, alive, healthy and recovering.

He is not alone because on January 7th, I underwent arthroscopic shoulder stabilization repair surgery in Vancouver with Dr. Patrick Chin. The whole process was a bit overwhelming because we went over the night before because my appointment was the next day in the afternoon. I had a few errands to run at my old place and I wanted to visit my cousin. Surprise, surprise when the hospital phoned me at 8:30am saying there was a cancellation. A football player was stuck in Port Angeles and if I wanted to come in "now", I could. I rushed my morning and headed straight down there. I met with the entire "team" - med students, nurses, anaesthesiologist and all. The surgery was downtown Vancouver at a private surgical hospital on the 7th floor of an office building - random. It was really nice though. I felt like I was waiting for my dental appointment. The little room I got changed in had a comfy sofa, personal TV and water ready for me. I went to the operating room, the doctor assured me it wasn't like the drama I see on Grey's Anatomy, and then I was talking about my trip to India... the next thing you know I"m waking up in a bed with all these busy nurses running around.

Unfortunately, I had a terrible experience post-anaesthetics and was nauseous beyond belief. From the bed to the chair to the wheel chair to the car into the house... it took me a long time to get anywhere. After a bit of sleep, a shot, yes a shot, of gravol from the hospital, i was a lot better. The nausea still came and went and eventually I managed to make it home on a ferry on the same day.

Since then, I was prescribed oxycodone for 5-6 days and Tylenol 3's for the remainder of the time as pain killers. Unfortunately, the oxycodone made me feel sick, have head aches and oddly get really itchy. To counter that I was taking anti-histamines, which also made me really drowsy and the migraines kept coming. I got rid of all pain meds basically and have since been just taking tylenol 3's at night with a gravol to keep sleeping. I think that works best and allows me to still function at school and when working from home.

The most awkward part has to be the sling because it has a pillow in between my bent arm and my side. This keeps my arm propped in a more neutral position to allow my shoulder to heal properly. It's an odd way of keeping me in position and it's certainly not comfortable. All this recovering requires a lot of patience and definitely makes me remember how amazing it is to have two working arms and functioning shoulders. It will definitely make me think about not taking things for granted and working even harder when I am back to 100% ... which should be sometime in May-June-July.

Until then, it's walking, stationary biking, lots of physio, lots of patience and lots of rest. Good thing I have an awesome canine to accompany me through the whole process.

More to come!