Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Three months Post Op

Today it is officially 3 months since my surgery. It has been a long and often still frustrating recovery. I really imagined I would be so much further by now. I knew that this repair was not in the socket area so I thought it would be easier. I think this has actually been my most difficult recovery yet. I am actually going to attach scans of my surgery report, I understand from the 2 PTs who have read it that it is quite fascinating. I will say that when I realized after my first post-op visit what I actually held in my hand my heart sped  up & I became very nervous/excited and not at all for the reasons you might think. I scanned the report frantically searching for a specific word I had hoped with all my heart NOT to see!
What word could have my heart tripping? It is a word that had nothing at all to do with the context of the actual surgery but was one that I read on the report of my first surgical report 9 years ago that left me reeling. That word was obese. As in the description of me being an obese female blah, blah.... I was shocked, humiliated & embarrassed. Even though I knew I was over-weight I never thought of my self as obese. It is such a harsh, horrible, shameful sounding word. It is Jabba the Hut & Johnny Depp's mom in What's Eating Gilbert Grape but surely, definitely, not me. Except it was. So I lost a lot of weight before my 2nd surgery & I kept it off for a year until...I didn't. (I won't rehash all that now you can go back a peruse some older posts if you want that old tale.)  I was determined to lose it again & get back into shape before this 3rd (hopefully last) surgery. I joined Weight Watchers in April of last year & by the date of my surgery I had lost 77 pounds. So it was with much anticipation that I looked for the dreaded O word on my surgical report, which much to my relief was not there. Only the dreaded F (as in 40) word was there but I had come to terms with that one months ago. 
Since my surgery I have had 6 pounds creep back on - since I spent 2 whole months literally sitting on my can I wasn't too shocked by this. I was quite disappointed n myself tho, because even tho the inactivity played a huge part I know that I let my boredom, depression & just general discontent with the unexpected slowness of my recovery process rule my food choices at times. Right now I am focusing really hard on getting back to the level of fitness I had prior to my surgery. Before my surgery I could walk several miles, in pain the whole time & miserable, but I could do it! And most shocking I enjoyed it! I was hiking with friends and it felt so good to get out into the world and move! Before I scheduled my surgery I signed up for the Dirty Girl 5K which is June 30th. I am absolutely determined that I will, at the very least, walk the entire course. I am working up to the distance with daily walks but am thwarted by the necessity of still using a cane for longer distances. I am also still battling numbness in by bum & back of the thigh along with muscle weakness. I guess I had this vision of the day I was released for full weight bearing as the day I would toss away the cane & strut off into the sunset...yeah not so much. So I just keep walking, taking one step at a time...