Week 3 – January 12th – 18th

Week Three – and my dressing came off on Monday morning at our local small hospital, Burncoose. The Nurse said that the wound was very neat and that I should massage the scar twice a day with Bio Oil so Mr S went straight out to get some and I am doing as I am told. It just feels odd, not at all sore, surprisingly, to massage it.

Still good days and less good days but the general direction of recovery is up. On the bad days I have a general feeling of malaise / have the energy drains and just need so much sleep! I am waking four or five times a night needing to pee so that doesn’t help at all. I’m getting only 2 or 3 hours at a time. Thank goodness for the BBC World Service! I can listen to fascinating stuff as I wait to fall back to sleep – and, no, it doesn’t keep me awake!  I have seen a GP this week re the frequency of peeing but she has no answers and has never heard of this before with operations. As I said to her, I am peeing gallons! Where is it all coming from?  I am wondering if it is one of the medications causing it, the Ribaroxaban for the DVT or the Codeine but neither says anything like that on the leaflet.

KJ, our second daughter has come to stay for a few days to help Mr S with the cooking etc so that he can get a little free time. She works from home as a Copy writer and has been given permission to work from our home instead which is lovely. It is a real tonic having her here.

I walked next door on Friday 16th January to have a coffee with my lovely neighbour. It’s a short walk as we have made a gap in the fence to facilitate our visits to each other! It was so good to have a change of scene and to share all her news. I also walked along the road a little way on Saturday. It started to rain while we were out but, oh my, it felt good to be out!

I have been feeling less pain and have ‘forgotten’ my pain killers a couple of times so decided to cut the Codeine and use only Paracetamol. I changed my mind after only one night and will continue with the Codeine just at night time for a little longer.

Sunday, landmark day!  Today I had a shower! Sue next door had offered for me to have a walk-in shower there but the thought of the effort required to dress afterwards when I need so much help was just too much. The bath board on loan from the NHS doesn’t fit our bath so the lovely Mr S improvised with a stool that just fits into our bath and with extreme caution, without bending my operated leg more than 90, I managed to get in and sit on the stool. Oh, what bliss! To wash my hair, to shower – I felt so good!  Things are on the up!  One of our other lovely neighbours brought us a big pot of soup for lunch today. We feel very lucky to be surrounded by such lovely people!