Lessons from the recovery trenches
9 things that struck me this time around.
Consider this proof of life — I missed you all! — as I am approaching four whole weeks of recovery after my 17th surgery and finally feeling up to writing again! (New here? Finally catching up on your inbox? Read more about my current health du jour here.)
While I have lived through this cycle so many times in my life, each spin of the wheel comes with its unique set of triumphs and tribulations.
Here are the 9 things that struck me this time around:
I am not (and will never be) a napper. Post-op fatigue on top of lupus fatigue is brutal — I’ve never slept as much as I have the last month… and I hated it. I know that rest is healing in action, and oftentimes I gave into a nap because my body would just simply shut down, but I can’t help but feel like sleeping the day away is a waste of what few good hours I usually have to engage with my life. I truly can’t wait for my energy to level out again! (Narrator: Energy? What energy? You live with chronic fatigue, girlie. Hilarious.)
You will never regret over preparing. I had over six weeks to plan ahead for this recovery and I regret very little of how much I hustled to connect all of the dots. I either prioritized all of my more urgent appointments within my pre-surgery window, or made all of my more immediate non-surgical ones as telehealth appointments (or scooted them back to later in the summer altogether). I bought birthday gifts and sent cards way ahead of time, used up food in both the fridge and freezer, and made sure all of my prescriptions were filled and up to date. Did I pack for the hospital like I was staying a week? You bet. Was it overkill? Sure was. Do I regret it? 1000% no, especially because I’ve been in the opposite situation before and I still think about how woefully underprepared I was for those six miserable days.
You’ll often be rewarded for giving nurses a little extra grace. I know we talk a lot about health care professionals here at Alive and (un)Well, and for good reason — the systems are so broken and patients suffer needlessly at the hands of them. But there are a lot of wonderful people working in medicine too; particularly nurses, the cleaning and cafeteria staff, techs, and hospital transport. Most of the time I never regret being extra kind to those folks, nurses especially, during a hospital stay. Sure, it can be tough to wait 30+ minutes for pain meds because the floor is short-staffed, but genuine understanding can yield a lot of benefits: drip coffee made for you in the nurses lounge (while other patients have to wait on the cafeteria), stretching out standard visiting hours because you finally got uninterrupted time with your favorite person, or even pausing the “I’m here to take your vitals” check-ins by just a smidge if they finally see you catching some shut-eye.
Perform small, self-imposed litmus “tests” along the way to track your progress. It’s really easy to get lost in the sauce of your own recovery. The days kind of float by (even if they do feel like they’re dragging at times) and you lose track of how you’re feeling in the moment when compared to the previous one. So one trick I’ve been employing for a very long time is performing routine tasks over and over to see how quickly or easily I’m able to complete them, if at all. Doing mental math is a huge one for me, because it’s something I’ve always been strong at, but my very special Recovery Brand of Brain Fog usually strips me of that skill for a bit. Aside from passing the time with endless games of Yahtzee (my Mom’s favorite), I used the task of adding up my points as a good barometer: Once I stopped needing a calculator, it meant I was a little clearer mentally. Other types of “tests” I performed: taking my dog on a very short walk, washing a load of clothes, trying to write this post, and paying a few bills.
The chronic illness domino effect is real. What a lot of non-disabled folks don’t realize is that surgery is never an isolated medical event because it naturally triggers a stress response in the body. For those who don’t live with chronic health conditions, as long as they don’t have any unforeseen post-op complications, their recovery is likely more linear. But for me, this surgery ignited an autoimmune flare which only doubles the pain and inflammation I was already experiencing. That’s what makes recovery so hard — everything that happens after.
Ice cream is an all-day food. Diet culture nonsense aside, there’s just something about ice cream that hits differently when you’re recovering from surgery. Sometimes it was all I could stomach in a day, especially because I couldn’t open the right side of my mouth very much in the first week or so. I ate a bathtub full (I for some reason feel the need to clarify that this is hyperbole?) of this flavor.
Let your people help you. I’m only able to write this post because of the people I have had in my corner over the past month. Sure, I’m the person who is physically going through it (getting a magnet implanted on your skull is not for the weak), but life doesn’t stop and things need to get done, so any and all help is essential to moving forward — even if that means finally taking your first wobbly, awkward post-op shower with a helping hand. P.S. The BFFs wrote about guilt and support systems earlier this week if this topic feels especially relevant to you right now.
Vaseline is A+ for real stitches. Suturing materials have come a long way, and things like dissolvable and internal stitches have only gotten better and more effective for speeding up patient healing times. Take, for example, my gallbladder surgery in 2023: All four of my incisions were sealed with medical-grade glue/tissue adhesive. No stitches! Whatttt? But for this surgery, with my doctor’s concerns about wound healing and complicated history with pre- and post-op infection, he decided to use real stitches (though I found out it was really just one stitch looped through the incision many times when it was taken out!). I forgot how uncomfortable and itchy those suckers can be! Enter: Vaseline. The relief I tell ya! (If you ever find yourself in a similar boat, just be sure to check with your surgeon about the timing of slathering it on. I also learned that Vaseline can undo dissolvable stitches, so avoid this tip if you’re in that camp.)
And in a shock to absolutely no one: Healing is hard. Biologically, your body has to do a lot to put itself back together, but I always seem to subconsciously forget just how much. Externally all you can see on my head is a shaved strip of hair and an upside down L-shaped incision behind my right ear. But internally? The bone of my skull was shaved down and layers upon layers of muscle were cut through to place the implant just so. THAT FREAKING HURTS. It still hurts, every single day (though I seem to be past the point of it hurting all day, every day, and for that I am grateful).
If you made it to the end of this, thanks for reading and for cheering me on! The internet can be a terrible place, but every heart, share, comment, and restack go a long way to propping my heart up in the darkness. How have you been lately? I’d love to know.
Such good reminders. I wish there was a way to bookmark this post and automatically send it to my future self every time I need it.
Such a great post - welcome tips for procedures I need to have regularly. I've been living inside my energy envelope for so long sometimes I almost forget I have ME/Fibro - almost but not quite.