Recovery: Day 3

Somehow things keep moving forward. I had an experiment yesterday, I have a meeting today to go over my grant proposal, and there is so much data to analyze. It feels weird not getting a break after such a rough surgery, but here we are. Things keep moving forward and if I don’t keep up I’ll get left behind.

I’ve always prided myself on pushing forward. I don’t stop no matter what’s happened to me. Actually that’s a lie, but historically when I stop the bad thoughts creep in and I end up trying to kill myself. It’s not as depressing as it sounds, I promise. It’s just my life, it’s what I’ve known, and I’ve gotten quite used to it.

It would be nice to not have to do anything right now though. My last surgery, a shoulder fix right before the pandemic hit, had me back in the lab literally the next morning, but recovery from that was unremarkable and while I couldn’t use the arm much, I managed to be useful while being (semi) pain free.

I think the difference between the last surgery and this surgery is that while I could keep my arm pain minimal by not using it, my spinal surgery means that I can’t lay down or sit down without pushing on the incisions. Basically there’s no position I can put my body in to find complete relief.

It’s hard to tell if a surgery that was going to reduce/remove your chronic pain when the incision sites still hurt. I’m hopeful, it’s just not going to be a fun week or two while my body does it’s thing and the swelling goes down. It still looks like they shoved golf balls into the incisions, which did I mention sit around my beltline? Yeah so I am wearing pants higher or lower than I would naturally and that feels so weird.

Anyway the point of today is simple, surgery hurts. Hopefully it will be worth it, but I won’t know until after it heals, sort of like unwrapping a christmas present in super slow motion, I won’t know if it’s what I wanted until I’ve completely healed.