Almost 6 Weeks Post Op!

If there's one thing I like better than the pastel colors around Easter, it's eating chocolate bunnies!

It's been a good weekend. I finished filing my taxes and I went on my first post-op run today. Surprisingly it went pretty well. I didn't have any pain during the run but I betcha I'll be feeling it in a couple days!

The rest of the day has been filled with spring cleaning: clearing out the fridge and scrubbing it, sweeping off the deck and vacuuming the car out. I really wish I had a housekeeper because it seems just as I have one room in control, another room seems to get messy. I usually save all the cleaning to do until the weekend so maybe I just need re-think my time management during the week. It sure is hard to come home from work and start cleaning though! Hmm, I guess my energy level is still low.

Tuesday will be the six week mark after my surgery which means:

• I can start exercising again (um, I jumped the gun but only by a couple days)
• I can start heavy lifting again (whatever, I try not to do that anyway)

So, it's on to a new page now. I'm feeling pretty good and for the most part am back to normal. My incision sometimes stings a little but it seems to be healing pretty well (despite the muffin top that's still lingering).

Bring spring on!

Perty, ain't it?

So this is the fibroid. It's pretty ooky, I know. Check out all the veins poppin out on that thing. The smaller thing in the pic is another fibroid and the thing on the right is my uterus (you can see where it's attached to the large fibroid by a stalk).

So I went to see the doc for my first post op visit earlier this week. He checked my incision and said everything seemed to be healing normally. I asked him about the hard, lovely muffin top that's above the incision and he said it would get better with time. I asked him if I should be massaging and he said no. He also told me I can start running and exercising in two weeks so I'm looking forward to that.

I asked him what he thought caused fibroids and how I could avoid growing them again. He said in all likelihood given my "talent" for making multiple ones, that I probably already have more growing right now at the microscopic level. Made me feel all warm and cozy! He said doctors aren't sure what makes them grow (other than estrogen) and that nothing had been proven to prohibit their growth.

My plan is to start going to a gynecologist that I can trust and make sure they know that I have this medical history so they can be vigilant looking for fibroids when I have an exam. That way they can be caught earlier and I can avoid a major surgery like this again!

Draggin Ass

Boy did I overdo it today. I carried a little 8 month old kid around for 2 hours this morning and it wore me out! Cute kid but it was a little too much lifting for right now. When I came home from work all I wanted to do was take a loooong nap. Not until I finish blogging though!

On a positive note, I'm back at work now and enjoying the routine for the most part. I thought it would be really hard on me physically to sit behind a desk all day but it hasn't been. I try to get up and move around throughout the day so I don't get too uncomfortable.

I'm looking forward to seeing the doc for the first time after my surgery on Monday. I'm going to ask him when I can start running and exercising again. I'm still not quite feeling up to that yet but it'll be good to know. For now, the slow paced walking is still just fine for me.

A Much Needed Distraction

I've been working on a quilting project the last few days--so intensely that I haven't gotten a chance to blog--sinful! I made a baby quilt for a friend and boy was it the project from hell. I got all these cute soft flannels to make the quilt and it was going to be the cutest thing ever. I have a White "quilter's" machine and I can't tell you how misleading the model name is. Suffice it to say that the instruction manual is sorely lacking and the machine itself is devoid of quality. Not a fan.

So, I went to a quilting store in my vulnerable state, hoping to get some advice on how to tackle my project with my sanity intact. Instead of helping me with my project the savvy women introduced me to the prince of all sewing machines: the Bernina 830. This thing has all the bells and whistles and even looks sleak and sexy (yeah, I know, a sewing machine!). So I took her for a test drive and it was magical. Guess how much this thing goes for....$11,000! Yep, that pretty much sealed the deal. But I can dream....

Oh yeah, my recovery:

As I'm approaching the end of my third week since the surgery I'm feeling like I haven't made much improvement since the beginning of the week until now. I still am not sleeping well (and still haven't purchased the memory foam--maybe tomorrow) and my back is still hurting, particularly in the mornings. My incision is still numb and the area around it is pretty sensitive which makes it difficult to wear "normal" clothes (not sweats). I'll bring all this up to the doc when I go for the post op in a week.

On a positive note I'm getting out a little more. Friday I even went out for dinner and a movie (woohoo) so maybe I'm expecting too much and should just be happy with overall improvements. Yeah, that's it.

Stay tuned for my first day back at work on Monday...

Gus and the Sunflowers Both Kicked the Bucket

So I finished watching Lonesome Dove finally--what a tear jerker! I won't say anymore in case you ever get around to watching it.

The flowers that were sent while I was in the hospital are finally dead. I feel like a character from Heroes that has gained strength from their demise so it's not such a bad thing to see their wilted bodies all around the house!

Last night was rough. I decided to try sleeping in the bed like a big girl but ended up awake with screaming back pain at 4am. I've noticed others have mentioned having back pain after surgery and attributed it to the lower back overcompensating for lack of ab strength. I think it's also my soft pillow top bed that doesn't support my lower back at all--I've been fantasizing lately of sleeping on a board! I wonder if that memory foam stuff would help. I've seen that you can buy just a pillow top for your bed instead of having to purchase an entire bed.

Aside from the back pain during the night, I feel lucky to have 80% of my mobility back at this point. It's mostly my low energy level that keeps me down which will hopefully build back up with time. Adios, Week Two and it's on to Week Three!

Banner Day!

Woohoo! Today I went off the meds to see how I felt. I've been taking Ibuprofen every 8 hrs since I got out of the hospital a week and a half ago. I'm feeling okay but probably should continue taking a lower dosage. At least the pain is manageable now.

I soaked in the bathtub for a bit this morning to take the steri strips off my incision. It was totally painless and the area is looking pretty good though I'm still sportin' the muffin top! I decided to reclaim my independence with a trip to Target and the grocery store. I'm getting around pretty well but my energy level is still pretty low. I found myself eyeing the pillows n such at Target for a place to take a nap. All this to say that I'm still not ready to go back to work yet. Tuesday will be the two week mark for my surgery and I feel like I still need to rest a good bit during the day (and work on my blog!). My entire incision and a couple of inches beyond it in all directions is really numb--a weird sensation. I've read on other post-surgery blogs that this is normal so I'm not gonna sweat it and hope it goes away in time.

All in all, a good day.

The Fibroid Belt?

Many diseases have been shown to have some sort of spatial relationship. There are countless projects underway investigating relationships between chemicals in the environment and breast cancer, for instance. Researchers have even discovered a geographical factor related to kidney stones.

Apparently there is a "kidney stone" belt in the south, where there are far more occurences than elsewhere in the country. But does that mean it's due to an environmental factor or could it be a social/cultural factor related to diet? Most kidney stones are composed of calcium oxalate which is found in tea so many researchers think the mass consumption of good ol' sweet tea in the south explains the kidney stone belt. Others think the stones are formed more in the south because it gets hotter there than in other regions, causing people to get more dehydrated and allowing stones to form more easily.

The reason I brought this up is because I went to the website of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. There you can perform data queries wherein you specify attributes you want to look at. I found a group of diagnosis codes for fibroid related hospital stays (the data available only concern hospital stays and do not include doctor's office visits) and specified that I wanted to see national statistics for all hospital stays throughout the country where the primary reason for that stay was fibroid-related. The data returned are organized in a way that you can see the stats broken down by region and guess what....

The south had double the number of instances than any other region! In fact, each of the other three regions (west, midwest and northeast) was within a couple thousand instances of each other. Perez Hilton says "inneresting..."

I'm always looking for a good excuse to do a GIS so this may be my next project! Stay tuned for the geek maps to start appearing...

P.S. I'm getting out of the house today for lunch outside my kitchen and a walk in the park--so excited!!