Wednesday 11 September 2013

5 Things That Suck About Recovering from Surgery

Hello All,

I am in the process of considering setting up a new blog as I've been so bloody useless on this one and I need some more direction and organisation and discipline but while I think of a name, theme and general approach, I'll stick to this one. Failing that, maybe I'll raise this blog like a phoenix from the ashes and actually update it.

Meanwhile, I had surgery last week and am currently dealing with the unadulterated boredom of post-surgery recovery. All is fine, just a slight little health hiccup which I hope is behind me now, but as my first experience of open surgery, it was a scary time. Not to mention painful.

So here are a few things that suck about recovering from surgery:

1. BOREDOM. SO MUCH BOREDOM.

The problem with post-surgery is that you have to take it easy and for the most part, that means a lot of staying at home - avoiding the dangerous outside and the threat of people bumping into you. Yes when we work full time, nothing sounds more perfect that lazing on the sofa and watching daytime TV, but after a few days of that and not much opportunity to go out - it gets really boring, really fast.

I have a lot of things to keep me occupied - my new Mac which I'm typing this on, 3 new books, 10 magazines and countless DVDs but it's the kind of boredom where you literally can't be bothered to do anything to get you out of this mindset.

2. Exhaustion

Obviously, surgery is quite a lot for your body to go through and as a result it takes a while to recover fully from it. The rest you need to take can also play havoc with your stamina. I had my surgery on Monday September 2 and I've only been out twice since the surgery. Both times, I've felt absolutely exhausted after. It feels so good to get out the house but it's becoming clear this is something I need to do slow and steady. It seems that as much as you want to get back to normal life, you have to listen to your body and take it a day at a time.

3. The General Public

I'm not the general public's biggest fan at the best of times, but post-surgery you have to become some kind of Terminator type scanner to seek out potential risks. These people don't know you have a healing wound about your person and don't understand how much pain or damage they could do to you if the were to bump into you. Therefore you have to be the one to dodge their oblivious strolling as they walk with their head in their phone and feet on auto-pilot. Constantly being on red alert is extremely draining and makes shopping much less enjoyable and much more obstacle course.

4. Restricted Mobility

I've had abdominal surgery, which is making anything from sitting, lying, bending and even stretching, a difficult and painful task. For someone that likes to rush around fast and get what they need, I've had to dramatically slow down and take my time. I've had to come up with ways to get what I need, which means I've developed an awkward lunge if I need to get anything below waist level. I have to lower myself to sit down like a pregnant lady. Getting things off the floor? Don't even think about it.

5. Dropping Things

Since I can't bend down or get anything that's on the floor (unless I can grab them with my feet), I've had to deal with the fact that if I drop something, it stays on the floor until somebody can help me out. My hands seem to think this is hilarious and have mysteriously became completely useless since surgery. This has seen me continually drop things and leave a trail of mess wherever I go or calling for help. In shops, if something falls off the hanger, I've had to become one of those dickheads that ignores it, because I can't pick it up!

Because I don't look pregnant or injured, I'm fairly certain I just look like a slow walking, lazy weirdo. It's not immeditely obvious that I've had surgery, which is a good thing, but it means people aren't aware of why I'm acting strangely. But let's face it, even if there was a badge I could wear that said 'I've just had surgery - give me space and patience', I wouldn't wear it anyway and everyone would be too intrigued in their smartphones to give it any attention.

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