Thursday, August 16, 2007

Pain and Trauma

It is my third day post op. When I woke in recovery, it was as I expected, painful. I had a drip, catheter, wound drain, oxygen and was hooked up to a heart monitor. I am not sure if it was because of my meditation on pain in advance of the operation, or because I had decided to flow with the pain instead of fighting it, but it was not unbearable. Of course the patient controlled morphine drip helped. However the drugs didn't actually eliminate the pain just dulled it. So I started pushing myself to move. my regular exercise and weight training helped enormously. I could lift myself and move. Don't get me wrong, it was still bad but I think the morphine fog was worse. The drugs also made me throw up making the incisions pull. So this morning they removed the morphine part of the drip, the catheter, O2 and ,now I can think clear enough to write.
I have 4 small incisions where the surgeon inserted cameras and instruments. One larger incision which I can't see at the moment but feels about 4 or 5 inches long, and I have a wound drain. I still have a drip and
am only allowed fluids, I have not eaten solid food in nearly 5 days, unless you count jelly as food. So in the end I can cope with this. Chemo is the next challenge.

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