The human nervous system is an amazing thing. We’re capable of feeling the lightest touch of a feather or the crushing depths of the ocean when we dare to dive deep. Recovering from surgery is a challenge to that amazing system.
As anyone who has had anything from major surgery to stitches will know. part of the healing process is what I refer to as “those wonderful (insert sarcastic tone here) nerve pains” Or “that asshole with the icepick”. Those are the intermittent stabbing pains that indicate that your nervous system is trying to reestablish connections. For me this, and the intense itching in spots, is a major indicator of healing.
Yesterday while we were driving back to Florida I dealt with several rounds of that asshole with an icepick. Unfortunately at times like those, acetaminophen just doesn’t quite do the trick. I’ll have to take 1/2 a Darvocet to make it stop completely.
Granted, there were extenuating circumstances yesterday. First, my muscles stiffen up when I’m in a car for that long, Yes we took breaks every couple hours, but it still takes a little time to work the kinks out. Getting in and out of the car is a process. Hubby holds a pillow in place and I slowly lower myself in and swivel around in the seat. The pillows act like shock absorbers against the vibration from the road.
Second, we went to visit my Mom. She’s near Williston training stock dogs of all types and teaching their owners how to be better handlers. So she’s out in the country. That means dealing with a dirt road and chuck holes at 30mph are never fun.
Third, even though these new bras are wonderful, my body still has to adjust to them. As I’ve mentioned before, I haven’t worn a real bra in 2 years so that might contribute a little bit as well to the stabbing pains. Thus we have multiple factors that may or may not be contributing to what turned out to be a 4 yesterday on the 1-10 scale.
That may not sound like much, but couple that with the stressors of meeting Mom’s business partner, touring the house and farm, meeting the other dogs and his horses and just the exhaustion of traveling, it’s surprising I didn’t tap out at a higher level.
We also ended up leaving Atlanta later in the morning than we usually would have. Thursday we stopped by my very favorite jewelry store in Dunwoody, H&A Jewelers, to check into the cost of upgrading my diamond studs. H&A had this fantastic program wherein once you buy a pair of their diamond studs, you can upgrade to a bigger size just by paying the difference between the two. They also charge 40% off the price on the tag on top of the trade-in value.
While we’re there we always have our wedding bands cleaned. The woman helping us took one look at my engagement ring and about passed out. It seems that the prongs holding my diamond in place were so worn down that had I bumped it really hard, there was an excellent chance that I could lose the diamond. So she overnighted a 6 prong (I did have just 4 prongs originally) white gold head, I still have the original band, to the shop and had my engagement ring ready to go Friday morning at 10 am when they opened.
We also stopped by Trader Joe’s on the way out of town to pick up a couple boxes of JoJo’s and half a case of wine. If you’re not familiar, Trader Joe’s has bottles of wine they call “Two Buck Chuck”. These are what amounts to the leftovers from vinyards all over Napa Valley blended together as individual wines. In other words, take all the leftover Chardonay from 40+ vinyards, mix it all together and you have Two Buck Chuck Chardonay.
Now as for JoJo’s, these are Trader Joe’s answer to Oreo. Their answer is BETTER. They use real vanilla bean for their filling and the cookies are just alittle bit soft. The flavor is better, they’re all natural AND their cheaper so it’s a winner all around.
With those errands to accomplish it took until almost noon before we were actually completely out of the Atlanta metro. Bearing all that in mind it’s no wonder I needed a 1/2 a Darvocet by the time we sat down to dinner with Mom.
Since we got such a late start and dinner with Mom went for quite a while, we ended up getting a room in Ocala last night. Ken was just too tired to drive the remaining 4 hours home. So this morning we’re off to the House of the Mouse after breakfast. As exhausting as yesterday was and as sore as I am this morning, we’re going to be renting a wheelchair again today. I’m really hoping that this will be the last time that I’ll have to be pushed around.
As far as medical updates go, the site on my back is looking good, as is everything else. There’s not much to report there. Though I DID notice something interesting last night I hadn’t noticed before. The “flap” part of my new breasts has a different skin tone than the original tissue it is attached to. Now I know you’re thinking “Thank you Captain Obvious”. To me this is just a minor thing that I found interesting.
I’ve also noticed that the transplanted muscle in my left breast still tends to spasm some if I use my arm to push myself up out of a chair. Not all the time but more than jut once in a while. The right does too sometimes but the left is much more adamant about it.
