Two weeks post op. I'm feeling pretty good.
It's been a roller coaster over the last two weeks. My life has been filled with pain, healing and emotional ups and downs.
The first week after surgery I had a lot of tears. Everything hurt, moving around hurt, breathing hurt, laying still hurt. My bowel movements were painful, peeing was painful and my period had just started. I was a mess. I spent a good part of the week worrying that this surgery wasn't going to help the pain. I could feel where my appendix was and it still hurt, I could feel the pain in the right ovary. It was like nothing had changed. If anything it hurt more than I was used to.
After the first three days, I had mostly stopped taking the pain killers and I had started to function a bit. By the end of the week I was up and moving around the house and even found some energy to go wander around the store. I was still taking the pain killers to sleep, but I was mostly off of them.
A week and a day after surgery I returned to work. My boss took it easy on me and scheduled my first three shifts for less than eight hours. I'm glad he did. Three haircuts into my first day back and I caught myself sweating profusely while fighting the pain in my right side. I wound up taking a pain killer at lunch and the rest of my day went smooth. I haven't needed pain killers since.
After my first day back I started to feel much better. It's now two weeks and one day post op and I feel normal. I can still feel that I've had a surgery. However, the right side pain that I've had forever has subsided. I have painless bowel movements. I didn't bleed rectally with my period for the first time in months. I got some cramps with this period, but they weren't shooting up my colon. I guess the surgery worked.
I've started the continuous birth control with the start of my period. I'm having some irritability and depression which can be a side effect of the birth control, a side effect of the anesthesia or both. The period I had was much, much lighter than I am used to. However, even with the end of this period I'm still spotting. I don't know if it's a side effect of the birth control, a side effect of surgery or both. Time will tell I guess.
My incisions have mostly healed. The left side is nothing more than a red lump, less than half an inch in size. The right side still has a bit of a scab on it and is about twice the size of the left. The belly button sometimes hurts when I move around and I'm waiting for it to heal and the scab to shed. I still have some bruising but it's turned a pale shade of yellow/green which means it's almost gone too.
I haven't had sex with my husband yet. He is scared. I am scared. He doesn't want to hurt me and I don't want it to hurt. I told him we'd try when the last incision is completely healed. I hate that I fear sexual pain. It's hard on me emotionally to think about it.
I'm fearing what's going to come. I fear the day I wake up with that knowing pain in my abdomen, I fear using the bathroom and seeing blood from a bowel movement. Every little abdominal twitch a voice in my head goes off and yells "the surgery didn't work!" I'm stressed out about it. Although every day is lower in stress.
I am feeling more positive and hopeful every day. It's like I have to get used to not having pain because in the past I expected/knew it to be there. In a way (and this sounds crazy) I miss the pain. It was consistent, I didn't worry it would or wouldn't be there because it was always there. It was part of me. Now I have a fear of the pain coming back. I didn't have fear before. I don't like the anxiety of expecting/waiting to feel it.
I know this surgery and birth control are only a temporary patch, but I hope the patch lasts long enough that I get to be a "normal" woman for a little while. I want it to last long enough that I get sometime not thinking about my endometriosis. I want it to last long enough that I'm not scared and I've forgotten how to worry about it. I want the disease out of my mind, even temporarily.
When I found out I had Celiac's disease, I wasn't depressed about it, I was happy I had a diagnosis and happy that I knew what to do to make myself feel better. I dove head first into the gluten free world and I never looked back. I never felt bad about myself for having it and I don't have the urge to ever cheat on my gluten free diet. Endometriosis is different. It can't be cured. There is no definitive as to what works for it. I think that's why I've taken it so hard. It's so easy to be depressed about endometriosis.
I'm going to get back into the gym in the next few weeks. I'm going to do everything I can to aid this surgery in helping me. Keep happy, keep healthy and keep moving. It's all I can do. If I can find a positive attitude towards everything else in my life, I can find a positive attitude for this too.
The first week after surgery I had a lot of tears. Everything hurt, moving around hurt, breathing hurt, laying still hurt. My bowel movements were painful, peeing was painful and my period had just started. I was a mess. I spent a good part of the week worrying that this surgery wasn't going to help the pain. I could feel where my appendix was and it still hurt, I could feel the pain in the right ovary. It was like nothing had changed. If anything it hurt more than I was used to.
After the first three days, I had mostly stopped taking the pain killers and I had started to function a bit. By the end of the week I was up and moving around the house and even found some energy to go wander around the store. I was still taking the pain killers to sleep, but I was mostly off of them.
A week and a day after surgery I returned to work. My boss took it easy on me and scheduled my first three shifts for less than eight hours. I'm glad he did. Three haircuts into my first day back and I caught myself sweating profusely while fighting the pain in my right side. I wound up taking a pain killer at lunch and the rest of my day went smooth. I haven't needed pain killers since.
After my first day back I started to feel much better. It's now two weeks and one day post op and I feel normal. I can still feel that I've had a surgery. However, the right side pain that I've had forever has subsided. I have painless bowel movements. I didn't bleed rectally with my period for the first time in months. I got some cramps with this period, but they weren't shooting up my colon. I guess the surgery worked.
I've started the continuous birth control with the start of my period. I'm having some irritability and depression which can be a side effect of the birth control, a side effect of the anesthesia or both. The period I had was much, much lighter than I am used to. However, even with the end of this period I'm still spotting. I don't know if it's a side effect of the birth control, a side effect of surgery or both. Time will tell I guess.
My incisions have mostly healed. The left side is nothing more than a red lump, less than half an inch in size. The right side still has a bit of a scab on it and is about twice the size of the left. The belly button sometimes hurts when I move around and I'm waiting for it to heal and the scab to shed. I still have some bruising but it's turned a pale shade of yellow/green which means it's almost gone too.
I haven't had sex with my husband yet. He is scared. I am scared. He doesn't want to hurt me and I don't want it to hurt. I told him we'd try when the last incision is completely healed. I hate that I fear sexual pain. It's hard on me emotionally to think about it.
I'm fearing what's going to come. I fear the day I wake up with that knowing pain in my abdomen, I fear using the bathroom and seeing blood from a bowel movement. Every little abdominal twitch a voice in my head goes off and yells "the surgery didn't work!" I'm stressed out about it. Although every day is lower in stress.
I am feeling more positive and hopeful every day. It's like I have to get used to not having pain because in the past I expected/knew it to be there. In a way (and this sounds crazy) I miss the pain. It was consistent, I didn't worry it would or wouldn't be there because it was always there. It was part of me. Now I have a fear of the pain coming back. I didn't have fear before. I don't like the anxiety of expecting/waiting to feel it.
I know this surgery and birth control are only a temporary patch, but I hope the patch lasts long enough that I get to be a "normal" woman for a little while. I want it to last long enough that I get sometime not thinking about my endometriosis. I want it to last long enough that I'm not scared and I've forgotten how to worry about it. I want the disease out of my mind, even temporarily.
When I found out I had Celiac's disease, I wasn't depressed about it, I was happy I had a diagnosis and happy that I knew what to do to make myself feel better. I dove head first into the gluten free world and I never looked back. I never felt bad about myself for having it and I don't have the urge to ever cheat on my gluten free diet. Endometriosis is different. It can't be cured. There is no definitive as to what works for it. I think that's why I've taken it so hard. It's so easy to be depressed about endometriosis.
I'm going to get back into the gym in the next few weeks. I'm going to do everything I can to aid this surgery in helping me. Keep happy, keep healthy and keep moving. It's all I can do. If I can find a positive attitude towards everything else in my life, I can find a positive attitude for this too.
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