Recovery

Well, I'm two weeks out and I am continuing to discover things about myself and this whole recovery process.

The first week post op I didn't really care about doing anything. I pretty much fell asleep every time I was still for a few minutes. Then the anesthesia began to wear off and I switched from Percocet to Ibuprofen so my head began to clear. That's when the reality of my forced inactivity hit me and I have to be honest, it stunk. I quickly became sick of all those things that I have often said I'd love to have more time to do. I was sick of tv, movies, games shows, and Dr. Phil. I was tired of puzzle books and Solitaire. The novel I was so looking forward to finishing lost it's excitement quickly. The highlight of my day was taking a shower, which seemed unnecessary most days since I didn't do anything! I could see all the things in the house that needed to be done and although John would do them for me, he got to them on his schedule, which never seemed quick enough for someone who had nothing else to do. I felt my frustration level raising and I knew I needed to do something if I was going to make it another six weeks without jumping off the deck.

The first thing I knew I needed to do was get back to doing my devotions every morning.  And just in time, the weather cleared up and I was able to sit on our deck and truly enjoy this sweet time with the Lord. Just being able to bring back that part of my routine made a huge difference in my attitude. In fact, all those other things started looking more appealing and life itself seemed less frustrating. What a surprise that getting back into spending time with God would have such an impact! Duh. I'll blame the oversight of this ridiculously obvious solution on the pain meds.

The second thing I did (and am still doing) was to start making a new goal for every day. They started out small, like eating breakfast sitting at the table instead of my recliner, washing my own back in the shower, drying my own legs off. These may seem like silly things but these were all things that John was doing for me and being able to cross them off my goal list proved I was becoming more independent. I began to work up to bigger things. Well, bigger in my mind anyway. Walking around the cul-de-sac once, then twice. Shaving my own legs (this was one that John was particularly excited to see me accomplish!). Going downstairs. Doing a load of laundry. Unloading the dishwasher. Making the bed. Some of them took several days to master and some took more than a little creativity on my part. For instance, the leg shaving at first required me to sit in a chair beside the tub and flop my legs over the side. Laurie's bathroom has a hand held shower head so it worked like a charm until I was able to do it in the shower again. Doing the first load of laundry had me looping the tie from my bathrobe through the handle of the basket and dragging it from the bedroom to the laundry room. John thought I'd lost my mind but I felt victorious!

I know that part of my attitude change has come with feeling stronger and being able to get out for short periods of time. However, I do believe that the accomplishments I challenged myself to do are directly tied to getting that strength back. I could have laid around feeling sorry for myself (and believe me, it would have been extremely easy to slip into that mode) but God has been so good to me through this whole ordeal that I felt I owed it to Him to do my best.

Today, during my devotion time, I promised God that I would continue to use these next five or six weeks to grow spiritually. The most tragic thing I can think of would be to look back at these weeks and say I wasted that whole time. Time is too precious to waste.