Screw you, Percoset

I decided yesterday that I'd rather be in pain than be nauseous for hours.  For that reason, I've stopped taking the Percoset and have moved on to Ibuprofen.  I simply cannot seem to find a prescription pain med that doesn't make me feel like hurling my guts out. Unfair!!

The Ibuprofen works okay.  It doesn't take the pain "almost away" like Percoset, but dulls it somewhat.  I'll have to live with that for now.

I've been thinking about my surreal time in the hospital and realized that I was not asking for enough pain meds from the nurses.  They asked me to rate my pain level 1-10, and I'm sure that I was lowballing it, not because I was trying to "tough it out" but because I had no idea what was normal or appropriate. It was driving Alan crazy but he wasn't sure if he should challenge me or not.  In retrospect, I should have told the nurses whenever it hurt and let the them tell me that I'd had too much.  Thank goodness for the night nurse who simply walked in and stated "here's your dilaudid" and put it in the IV.  The other nurses (bless them, they really were good and attentive) let me call the shots.

Logan's progress

You may be curious about how my nephew is doing. The answer is "reasonably well." The kidney liked him pretty much right away. What I think complicates things is that his body and all of the functions we associate with eating and drinking are now completely upside down for him. He is doing for the first time many things you and I take for granted. That means a whole lot of new problems, but hopefully problems are about learning to do things for the long-term (such as eat) that won't require re-learning later. My sister can chime in if I'm not interpreting correctly. This transplant was a good thing for sure, but send your good wishes his way while he gets through these new challenges.

One Week Later: Hurray for Abdominals!

My primary care docs often have told me how great my abdominal muscles are.  I attribute this to years of running: you can't really run without developing your abs.  It just kinda happens.  After running my marathon in June I probably had some awesome abdominal muscles, but after the marathon not only did I cut way back on running but decided to continue eating as if I was still training for the marathon.  Bad, bad idea for those abs.  Makes me wonder if this recovery process would have been easier had I had more discipline from June through October...but as I joked (badly) all the way through October:  "Give me more cake.  I could die on the table!"

One week post-surgery, I can sit down, get up, roll over, etc on my own, with only occasional requests to Al to help me up.  Slightly painful but not debilitating.  I also ate a full meal last night for the first time since last Tuesday, which I think is momentous.  Haven't been able to stomach anything more than liquids and small food bits for a week.  I'm also down to a single Percoset every six hours or so, which I think explains why I can eat more.  I think this is remarkable progress, but there are still several things that I just can't do without being all pathetic:

• Cough, or even clear my throat.
• Laugh, which is difficult when you live with Alan who doesn't even know when he's being funny.
• Sit in a chair for longer than 5 minutes or so (I'm reaching my max as I type this).
• Stretch.  This one is harder to deal with that you might imagine.

I know these things will all get easier, and apologies to those who have had abdominal surgery and to whom this is nothing new.  I'm home now, which is A-W-E-S-O-M-E.  My couch, my jammies, my tea, my television.  This should help my abs tremendously.  I'm going to take my first Percoset of the day and watch Ellen.