** 7 weeks now since my spinal fusion surgery **
I guess I just supposed that this was going to be a little bit easier with each week that passed. On the contrary, for the past while I have felt worse and worse. My back itself is doing well. The narcotics I must take for pain, however, are trying to slowly kill me. They are messing with my stomach in big and terrible ways. It's embarrassing to talk about. It leaves me extremely nauseous with weird dizzy spells. It makes it hard for me to feel like leaving the house. It makes it hard to me to eat. It causes me more pain in my gut than I even have in my back. I have begun to lose a worrisome amount of weight. All of my clothes are falling off of me. I look as pale as a ghost with sunken eyes. Everything is hard again: I'm slower, weaker, and more dependent on others. Whatever progress I thought I was making before seems to be all gone.
Back to the drawing board!
In the beginning, I felt like I was really brave, fairly positive, and patient with the whole process. Now it seems that time is wearing me down. I'm ready to be DONE. I get little panicky moments where I wonder if I will ever feel normal again. I'm primed and ready for a bit of a breakdown.
I'm desperately trying to get off the pain pills... for all of the reasons above. I'm only taking 1 or 2 halves of a pill each day. That's a lot better than 2 pills every 4 hours like I was doing in the beginning. This has 2 consequences: 1) I am in pain. Not a lot, but a little more than before. And 2) Everything feels like it's falling apart.
That's probably all it is.
Purely by unfortunate coincidence, this week we started getting less help from our church friends. No more meals being brought in and a little less help overall. I figured after this long, we'd should be able to do (or begin to do) more on our own, plus I don't want to take unfair advantage of all the kindness. So I am trying to manage a little bit of laundry once in a while, a little bit of dishes, and last night I made pancakes for dinner. (Woooo... impressive!) The kids get to help a LOT. They are thrilled about that :) I have to modify everything I do to accomplish it without bending or straining my back, which takes a fair amount of creativity. Either that or it takes 5 times longer. Good thing I have nothing but time. I'm anxious to be driving again. Even the mere suggestion of freedom sounds appealing. Although realistically with my new pain levels and stomach woes, what am I going to go do?
So THAT is why I feel like I'm coming full circle. All this time has gone by, and yet I feel like it's right back to hard and awful again. It's probably safe to assume that what's going on with my body is to be expected, but it's my emotions that need a little work now.
3 comments:
Next time you have back surgery, can you not do it during tax season? It's really inconvenient for me. :)
Since I can't physically help out in the near future - I'll say some prayers.
Hang in there lady.
I'm sorry it's difficult right now. It reminds me of when I have a new baby. The first few weeks, I'm okay with all the pressure. But when I get to about 2 months, I wonder if the hard part is ever going to end. Then it slowly gets better. Now those really hard parts seem so distant and almost laughable--I hope you get to the easier parts soon. <3
Those darn pain pills! It's totally those pills that are messing with your emotions and I'm glad you are trying to wean off them. They do cause euphoria and when you quit them, you hit some major downer mood swings, not to mention more pain. Sorry you are dealing with all this. But it's good for your boys to pitch in and I know they are good kids that want to help.
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