Two weeks out

Recovery for me hasn't been the easiest road ever but I'm getting there.

So far, fluids haven't been an issue. I don't have to take these baby tiny sips that I thought I would have to post-op. I can take two normal drinks, same size as pre-op but I can't glug down a huge glass of water at one like I used to. But the normal drinking thing kinda weirded me out at first since I had read so much about sipping. I'm doing chewable vitamins for now, but that will change when these run out and then I'll flip to vitalady's schedule.

Food has been ok. My doctor requires 3 weeks of liquids/pureed foods, and then another 3-4 weeks of soft foods before moving on to everything else. I have one more week of pureed foods, and I'll be happy to move on some soft stuff. I'm eating corned beef hash, refried beans, soups, applesauce, and SF popsicles. My one "cheat" I've had is a laughing cow cheese wedge mooshed really well before it goes down. I seem to be lactose intolerant so hopefully that dies down some in the coming weeks.

As for healing, I developed a small infection where my OnQ pain pump came out and my PCP looked at it and put me on antibiotics for it. Then a couple of nights ago, I started having pain in my abdomen on the right hand side. I had had pain there since post op and the Dr. said to expect that to be very tender but the pain really increased a LOT and my chest area started feeling very tight and it hurt my ribcage to breathe in any sort of deep capacity. I tried to walk it off thinking it was gas but nothing helped and it felt like an elephant standing on my chest when I tried to lay down. After pacing the house for about 3 hours, I gave up at 3 am and went to the ER. They did every test they could do - blood work for infection, a CT scan of both my abdomen and chest, chest xrays, EKG, etc. None of it turned up anything. So I went home with a pain prescription and the doctor's office said that it sounded like it was just things healing up and scarring and my body was having a tough time with it. I am confident in that answer as they had ct scans from the day after surgery to compare it to. My thought at this point is that the abdomen pain is from healing/scarring and that the ribcage pain was brought about by how I was holding my upper body to compensate for the pain.

Other than that little bump, so far so good! I'm down 20 lbs in two weeks, but am still so swollen that I can't even fit in to my pre-op fat jeans - hopefully by next week things will be less swollen and I can wear them. My baby is tired of seeing me in sweats and PJ bottoms! :) My bewbies are GONE! My bras are already very baggy in the cups which sucks. I've been wearing a lot of sports bras. I did go through my dresser and have donated all my summer fat clothes and luckily I'm pretty well set up for the next size down so hopefully that will get me through the winter without having to drop too much on clothes.

I can't wait to be totally healed and over the pureed/soft food stages. I'm not head over heels in love with my DS but we're definitely warming up to each other! :)