A lot of little things have happened since the last time I’ve blogged. During my recovery period up to about the end of November, I got a little frustrated with trying to come up with blog worthy content so I took a short break to just let stuff happen and take it all in before regurgitating it out right away. Also, WordPress updated to 5.0 and I had some technical issues the last week on the backend of my site so I had to spend some time troubleshooting things.
Every Thanksgiving for the last 19 years, I’ve been in charge of cooking dinner for my family. I didn’t feel like this year should be any different, surgery or no surgery so I did my best to plan simple dishes since I wasn’t sure how much energy I would have to make it through making everything after only 5 weeks of post surgery recovery time.
We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, gravy, and broccoli salad all made from scratch. I would definitely consider it a success as I had enough physical strength to get everything cooked and it all tasted good too. In my opinion, the leftovers are always better than the actual dinner so I try to make extras to last a few days.
I am absolutely thankful for how well my recovery has gone up to this point. Although the first few weeks have been really tough, things are slowly getting better day by day. I told my family that I feel really blessed to have them to take care of me and that throughout this whole period of treatment, I didn’t have anything to worry about except to get better. I’m also really grateful for my friends and friends of friends who have been reading and keeping up with the blog and supporting me in their own special ways which I appreciate a ton.
In keeping with the holiday spirit, my parents have been going to several churches and bible studies that they’re involved with in the community to share the story of our family and how the power of prayer has made a difference for all of us. My dad really likes to talk so I let him have the stage as he’s a really good public speaker whereas my strength is in writing and then obsessively re-writing.
My physical recovery has been going really well lately. I’ve been off all pain meds for 4 weeks now. It came to a point where I just got tired of making sure I took a handful of pills every 6 hours and just dealt with the soreness. I just felt a little uncomfortable either taking the 1 oxy pill or 3 ibuprofen and 1 tylenol. It just seemed excessive.
At this point, I’m feeling just a slight soreness in my chest. It kind of feels like the day after a chest day at the gym but only concentrated on the middle of my chest. I’m still completely numb about 1 inch above my incision on the right side. I reached out to the surgical nurse practitioner and she said that it’s to be expected for a minimum of 6 months since there is a lot of nerve recovery going on.
I’m also dealing with some shortness of breath, especially when I’m talking with people. I’ll just get caught up with a little bit of coughing between words which requires a little bit of patience from the person I’m talking to as it takes a little bit more time for me to get out what I want to say.
The incision itself is nearly completely healed, the scabbing is almost all gone and I have bits of white string coming out of my skin which I think is what they used to stitch me back together.
The top of the incision however has been oozing fluid for the last 2 weeks. I’ll wake up in the morning with brownish red residue on my shirt so I’ve had to use a bandaid to prevent further staining on my clothes.
You’ve probably noticed all the hair that I’ve got on the top of my head! It feels like a baby’s hair where it’s super soft. I’ve been off chemo for 3 months and am kind of impressed at how quickly it’s growing out. So much in fact that I actually went in for a haircut last week to clean things up.
When I was anticipating my surgery in October, Joanna let me know that her work was having a Christmas party on December 8th. It was my goal to be recovered by that date so that we could go together. During the week of Thanksgiving, my dad started taking me to the mall to walk around to build up my strength and stamina. I started at Eden Prairie mall and was able to walk the whole thing without a sweat. Then upgraded to Southdale and then to Mall of America which is 1.7 miles to walk all three floors.
I was really glad that I was physically in shape enough where my parents were comfortable with us attending Joanna’s work event because it was a ton of fun to just be out and start being “normal” again.
Since my physical health has been improving, I didn’t want to forget to take care of my mental health. I met with my cancer therapist on Wednesday to talk about what I should keep in mind with transitioning back to a routine and back to work.
I told her that recovering from surgery was mentally easier but physically harder than recovering from chemo. She stopped me and said “That is a VERY good observation you made, tell me more!”
I felt like a little kid when you tell them how BEAUTIFUL their crayon drawing was. I actually sat up straighter because she made me feel proud of myself for being introspective and being validated for it.
It’s true though, when I was going through chemo there were really bad days but most of the time things were neutral or good. Looking back, the chemo meds definitely made me more emotional and irritable so feeling the friction of not being able to go out with friends or Joanna when I was physically feeling fine was really frustrating.
On the other side of the spectrum, I felt physically bad every day for many weeks following my surgery so I knew what my limitations were. Therefore there was a lot less conflict and I was pretty obedient with regards to following the rules. I mean it was pretty obvious I needed to take it easy since I strained myself just from changing my bedsheets.
There came a point about 3 weeks ago where I just stopped watching tv and movies because I just couldn’t sit around anymore. I created a study schedule for myself to do the project management certification and have been doing about 2-4 hours a day either reading or watching lectures online. It’s been a good mental exercise to improve my focus and retention. I should be ready to take the exam by the end of January if I stay consistent with my study schedule.
Last Friday, I got the green light from the hospital staff to lift my physical restrictions so I was allowed to drive again. Even though there’s snow on the ground and 15 degrees outside, I’m happy to be out and about again. It’s actually really good timing because my dad had an appointment this week to prepare him for his radiation treatment starting on Monday.
I volunteered to drive my parents down to “repay” them for taking me down to Mayo for all of my appointments and treatments.
I think I’m the only one excited to be in the car in this picture.
Dad’s radiation therapy will be once or twice a week for the next 4 weeks ending on 12/28. Things are looking really good right now so hopefully he can be in the clear by the time 2019 rolls around.
Life isn’t super Earth shatteringly dramatic anymore. I’m just slowly easing back into how things used to be before I got sick 6 months ago. This journey has sucked and has challenged me in ways that I never expected to be challenged before but I want people to know that I feel really grateful to have gone through it and come out the other side. I’ve loved writing this blog and knowing that it’s made an impact on people’s lives. I feel like I’ve got maybe one or two more blog posts left in me, I guess I’ll just keep writing for as long as there’s a story to tell.
Hi Andrew – Very nice to read your post and see how well you’re doing. You are so amazing and I’m so glad that you’re finally able to get back to doing “normal” things. 🙂 We hope to see your smiling face around BIW sometime soon. Have a very Merry Christmas! Kristin