Monday, October 22, 2007

1 month after the surgery

This evening is 1 month since my surgery already. Time goes fast but I am eager and impatient to be recovered. In terms of recovery, time cannot go fast enough. I want to be healed already.

How are things going 1 month after the surgery?

I am still on the steriods. I had to continue them as I got withdrawl headaches from the previous taper. This week I dropped to a dose of 1 mg a day (started on Thursday) which started to affect me over the weekend. I have been taking acetametapin or some type of over the counter pain reliever continuously. Saturday started out pretty good but as it was a long day and I had no nap, the headaches started in the afternoon which were not too bad but reached its apex at 4 am Sunday morning which had me rolling around on the floor. The feeling is like accidentally inhaling high salinty water through your nose while snorkeling where you feel soreness in your sinuses and then behind the eyes (a throbbing pain). If you were a fan of the sci-fi show "Stargate" I imagine this same pain when the Goa'uld use the high tech hand device to suck the essence out of your brain. LOL It appears to produce extreme head pain to the frontal lobe.

Sunday I did not feel too great and rested all day with my afternoon napping (I get burned out at midday and have to nap for an hour or longer). Then I awoke and we walked the dogs at the dog park.

Today I also did the same but for the first time in over a month I went to the gym this morning and did an upper body workout which went really well. I got the approval at my appointment last week to recommence my weight training but limit myself to 30-45 pounds. My body has become really weak from the whole ordeal, the steroid taper, and muscle wasting starting. Thus it felt great to return to lifting and take my body back.

It is approaching time for me to get off the steroids again. My face is again puffy (which is not too bad as it even outs the wrinkles now that I am thin) but it does affect my speech and feels like I have cotton in my cheeks. I have also noticed I have hairs growing on my face again (which occured back in 2004 and 2005). Fortunately the hairs are light in color and not black! As they did prior, I am hoping they fall off and disappear instead of becoming something permanent I have to take care of. Otherwise I will become a hairy pumpkin head in time for Halloween!

The vision is still quirky. It is mostly affected when I look to either side. Sometimes (like today) I have mild bouts of double vision or distorted vision. Harley and I were talking about it today and I realized my brainstem has undergone quite a shift which takes time for my brain to adjust.

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