After the Surgery

Sorry it has taken me so long to write my next post.  Life always gets in the way of everything, I need to make sure and schedule time to write.  Thank you so much for those who commented on my last post.  I always love to hear about others going through the same thing, support in numbers right!

     One of the things that I forgot to mention on my last post is returning to work after the surgery.  The doctor told me to plan on 2 weeks of recovery and then he assured me I could go back to work.  I was working in a pediatricians office at the time as the receptionist so I thought even if I was still in a little pain I would be sitting down all day and it wouldn't be that bad.  Well after 2 weeks I went back to work and ended up throwing up everywhere within the first 30 minutes.  I think just the constant moving of getting patients files and walking back and forth to the copier was too much too soon.  That happened each day the first 3 days back at work and then I think my body started getting used to the movement all day and I started feeling better.

     A few weeks after the surgery, once I started feeling well enough, I started my wedding planning.  I had my surgery March 17th and was told I would be just fine for my wedding day on June 11th.  Well let's just say that wasn't completely wrong, but it wasn't exactly right either.  For the first 2 months after surgery I wasn't able to lift my arms above my head, it was too painful because I would be stretching the muscles that I just barely ripped apart and shoved a bar into (sorry to be so graphic).  Each time you move those muscles your body realizes that there is a foreign object in you and it doesn't like it one bit.  When you shower it is really hard to shave your armpits because you can only lift your hands out to the sides instead of straight up, attempting to reach places like your back to scrub wasn't exactly easy, trying to put a shirt on in the morning was a nightmare, but I was determined and figured out pretty quickly strange ways to put a shirt on without lifting my arms to high.  On that note though you can only imagine how wedding dress shopping went ha ha.  I had to have someone help me into each one and they had to start at my feet and pull it up instead of going over my head.  Also they couldn't do the dress up all the way because it would be too tight on my chest and I wouldn't be able to breath.

(This is me trying on dresses, as you can see my arms are completely at my side and stayed there the whole time.)

     After the surgery the hospital gives you a breathing tube device that is supposed to help your lungs learn to expand to their full capacity, since they have been smooshed by your rib cage your whole life (depending on how bad your indent is)  Mine was pretty bad so I used the device several times a day to try and train my lungs, although I never got as good a number as my husband the show off :)  How it works is you put the end of the tube in your mouth and inhale slowly as far as you can and then hold it there.  While you inhale you can watch the dial go up and measures your lung intake which will show you if you are improving or not each time.

     Here is the device, an average lung can make it to the top line of 2500ml, when I first started I could barely make it to 1500ml and that was struggling.  Since then I am able to make it to 2000ml on average and have gone just barely past it a few time.

     This is the other device that you are sent home with.  This one is supposed to help remove the mucus from your airways, since coughing is out of the question.  You blow into the end as hard as you can and it vibrates the lungs and breaks up the mucus.  I found this helpful especially since coughing and sneezing were so painful the first few months.  When you cough the doctor tells you to hold a pillow and brace yourself the best you can because you move everything in your chest when you cough and it's painful.  I was able to control my sneezing for the most part though and just stared at the light or did anything to keep the sneeze from coming out.  Probably not the best thing to do but for me it was better than the hurt that came with the sneeze.
   
     They said that everything would begin to get better with time, the only problem was that I was the oldest patient they had ever done it on, so they weren't sure how much time, and usually their calculations were off.  I don't blame them but they did always seem a little frustrated, almost to the point that it felt like they didn't really believe me, when I would tell them I was still in pain or still couldn't do certain activities like putting my arms above my head.  So the older you are just be prepared for a longer recovery than normal.  We aren't as limber as we used to be :)