Catherine

It's so hard to not give into despair. I left my house for the first time since surgery Wednesday last night, Tyler came to visit me and took me to the mall so I could get a birthday gift for my Dad. I was at the mall for 15 minutes total. I felt like I had run 2 miles, I was sweating, shaking and so exhausted. Dr. Greiman said recovery would be harder for me, because I am older, but I didn't know it would take this long. I'm supposed to start weaning off the Vidocin today, which, is a blessing and a curse. I have the liquid form, because pills are a bit too hard to swallow, so I'm glad that i don't have to drink the stuff anymore, but then I'm still in a lot of pain when I go without it. My parents have been so good to me. My Dad gave up his spot in my parents bed, so that I could sleep with my Mom in case I need something in the middle of the night. Every night he sets up 2 doses of my medicine by the bed, with grape juice (what i drink after i take it to get the taste out of my mouth) and then goes and sleeps in one of the guest bedrooms. Every morning when he gets ready for work, he'll come in and rub my back to wake me up just a little to make sure that I don't need anything. Then Mom who seriously has Mom ESP, every time I wake up to take more medicine or drink something, she knows, she'll sit up and ask if I'm ok or if I need anything. I should count myself lucky though. I haven't thrown up or gotten nauseous at all. I must have the stomach of a rhino. Because I haven't eaten hardly anything and I always take the vicodin on an empty stomach but it hasn't made me sick. The anesthesia didn't even make me sick. Dr. Woiwood was my anesthesiologist and Dr. Greiman did the surgery, it was fun to have 2 of my friends dad's being the ones operating on me. Dr. Woiwood even let me squeeze his hand when the nurse put the needle in my had for the iv. I was kinda nervous, even though I give blood and had surgery for my wisdom teeth and stuff, I had never had real anesthesia. My wisdom teeth was just at the oral surgeons office, it was surgery, but not like at the hospital and stuff. I'm losing too much weight too, my Mom keeps having to force feed me. I lost 6 pounds before I even had surgery and I haven't really eaten a full meal since surgery so I keep losing weight. The doctors said I need to try and eat more because my body won't be able to heal as well if I'm so "drastically underweight" I'm just tired of missing class and sitting around watching tv. Hopefully it'll get better soon. -Cat