Wasted week
I feel like this entire week has been wasted. I had been so busy prepping for Thanksgiving that I decided to take this past Monday off. I just wanted a day to myself. I took it and it was very nice. Unfortunately, Tuesday found me awakening to a sinus headache that lasted through Wednesday. I could do very little on those two days, because moving around made my head pound. The pain was gone by Thursday morning, and feeling revitalized, I got some work done. But I had to go into Jacksonville for my post-op appointment with my doctor. I didn't have a lot of time, so I barely scratched the surface of my To Do list.
The midwife who works in my doctor's practice encountered complications with one of her deliveries, and my doctor went to assist. Steve and I ended up being in the office for two hours. I got a clean bill of health. He found about 4 mm worth of granulation on an interior suture line, which he treated with silver nitrate. Granulation is essentially where an incision or suture line accumulates some extra tissue. The silver nitrate cauterizes it.
We also discussed the ongoing bruise-like feeling in my abdomen to the left and just below my belly button. The doc thought it was a nerve that was hit by one of the internal stitches. He said they get inflamed and start firing almost continuously. He palpated the area until he pinpointed the pain location via my jumping reaction, then double, and tripled checked exactly where it was hurting. Needless to say I was sick of that pretty quickly! He said anesthetizing the area would calm the nerve and hopefully prevent it from starting up again once the anesthesia wore off. The procedure required two needles. One small one to make the surface area numb, and a second, longer one to enable him to get deep into the effected area. Steve watched the procedure and said the doctor swiveled the syringe a lot once the needle was at the right depth, distributing the anesthesia over a wide area. Thanks to the first needle, I felt none of the second.
Steve took me out for a belated birthday dinner. It was lovely. When the anesthesia wore off shortly thereafter, I really started to hurt. What was normally a bruised feeling had developed into a throbbing bruised pain. It was very sore to the touch and was so irritated that I had to sit in the back seat behind Steve, so the seat belt buckle wouldn't be resting on that part of my stomach. It turns out the area is very traumatized from the exam and needles. I have a large bruise. So I have no way of knowing if the anesthesia stopped the nerve misfiring, because I now have a legitimate bruise there!
I took pain meds to help me sleep more comfortably, which leads me to the whole wasted week thing: I'm groggy beyond belief! I've been up a few hours now and I can barely function. I may as well be a zombie. I'm amazed I can even write this, I'm so slow. I have so much to do, but I think I need to go lie down. Maybe I can regain some level of functionality with a nap.
The midwife who works in my doctor's practice encountered complications with one of her deliveries, and my doctor went to assist. Steve and I ended up being in the office for two hours. I got a clean bill of health. He found about 4 mm worth of granulation on an interior suture line, which he treated with silver nitrate. Granulation is essentially where an incision or suture line accumulates some extra tissue. The silver nitrate cauterizes it.
We also discussed the ongoing bruise-like feeling in my abdomen to the left and just below my belly button. The doc thought it was a nerve that was hit by one of the internal stitches. He said they get inflamed and start firing almost continuously. He palpated the area until he pinpointed the pain location via my jumping reaction, then double, and tripled checked exactly where it was hurting. Needless to say I was sick of that pretty quickly! He said anesthetizing the area would calm the nerve and hopefully prevent it from starting up again once the anesthesia wore off. The procedure required two needles. One small one to make the surface area numb, and a second, longer one to enable him to get deep into the effected area. Steve watched the procedure and said the doctor swiveled the syringe a lot once the needle was at the right depth, distributing the anesthesia over a wide area. Thanks to the first needle, I felt none of the second.
Steve took me out for a belated birthday dinner. It was lovely. When the anesthesia wore off shortly thereafter, I really started to hurt. What was normally a bruised feeling had developed into a throbbing bruised pain. It was very sore to the touch and was so irritated that I had to sit in the back seat behind Steve, so the seat belt buckle wouldn't be resting on that part of my stomach. It turns out the area is very traumatized from the exam and needles. I have a large bruise. So I have no way of knowing if the anesthesia stopped the nerve misfiring, because I now have a legitimate bruise there!
I took pain meds to help me sleep more comfortably, which leads me to the whole wasted week thing: I'm groggy beyond belief! I've been up a few hours now and I can barely function. I may as well be a zombie. I'm amazed I can even write this, I'm so slow. I have so much to do, but I think I need to go lie down. Maybe I can regain some level of functionality with a nap.
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