So this morning I wasn’t able to stand without nearly passing out and thought for sure they weren’t going to let me go home. I was really down and having some difficulty processing that I might need to be in the hospital for yet another extra day. It was really disheartening because I had actually been able to walk previous days but after the pain spikes I wasn’t able to
I got a motivational call from someone close to me though, the hospital trans outreach person brought the emotional support chihuahua by a couple of times, and I built really specific plans with my nurses and doctors for ways I could get walking again
It took so much work and I was exhausted through the entire way but I managed to do it! Also bonus points I finally managed to poop which was a big event after five days of not 😐
They let me out of the hospital, one hour car ride back home with only some minor screaming pain toward the end, and I’m back on track again. I’ve walked around a couple more times today, like to go from bed to food to couch, I’m extremely exhausted, but we’re back on track after the couple extra nights at the hospital
I get to bumble around with the catheter for a couple more days still but that will be out soon enough
Update 1: I used a walker but I got out of bed, across the house, and into a couch without help from caretakers! This is the first time I haven’t needed someone to at least help lift my legs up once I’m at the target destination. Last night was mostly amazing I finally got more than like two hours of sleep at once (at hospital there were constantly people waking me up for various meds and tests). I did have one brief period of bladder spasms which felt pretty awful but now I know what they feel like for me early on so hopefully I can catch them early next time and get ahead of it. I’m really happy right now
Update 2: Yesterday went well I did a lot of good walking. I’m not doing the full suggested amount yet though I’m running into serious fatigue partway through the day. Today the primary goal is to get through not being able to do bladder spasms meds for 24 hours before catheter removal. So I’m staying really on top of pain meds basically, making sure to continue to shift off the heavy pills and move to tylenol and ibuprofen. Having to be laying down so much is really starting to set in some back pain so hopefully my endurance gets better quickly and I can move around give my back some variety
Update 3: As expected my bladder spasms are casually ignoring the pain meds so I’m trying to find out if there is anything that I can do other than suffering for the next 18 or so hours. Good news though is I made it up two stairs to get myself outside! I said hello to some bees and listened to the birds yelling at each other, smelled some lavender bushes, really helped with mental health
Update 4: If I wanted to torture someone I’d put a catheter in them then just wander off for a weekend. I’ve only got about 8 more hours before this cursed device comes out of me
I was in the hospital for 5 days and 2 weeks in a nursing facility. Pain spikes lasted 6 days as nerves reconnected. That was the plan from the beginning with the hospital and insurance.
My pain spikes only lasted about 10 hours, even that was enough that when I’m home I’m going to have to process that with a therapist. I can’t imagine 6 days do you mind if I ask how you got through that?
It felt like an electric thud, I had pain med IV and it only happened every few hours and was a split second jolt.
Oh that’s much different than mine. The ones I had were from inflammation pulling on bolster stitching. It was like a couple hours of feeling like my bits were getting torn open then an hour or so of being fine, repeated a few times. The last one I was crying so hard I had an asthma attack too so could barely breath and was coughing which doubled down because of the increased blood pressure, tension, and stressing my abdominal incisions
Ooo I thought you were talking about nerves reconnecting. That sounds rough.