Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Getting Stronger

There seems to be a disconnect between my brain and my body. Nothing happened to my brain 5 weeks ago (except for a ridiculous amount of morphine getting to it, but once that went away, my brain was, once again, fully functioning). But a lot happened to my body. Six and a half hours of surgery, many tubes, drains, fed intravenously, a huge incision across my abdomen, rewiring of my entire digestive system, unable to do the simplest bodily functions, a lot of vomiting, 23 days in bed with a few walks here and there, and the list goes on. But these days, when I awake, drug-free, my brain goes into full gear. I think of the million things I need to do, and then I stop. Wait! My body is healing. I'm not going to do 1 or 2 of those things, let alone a million. My body needs to rest and my brain needs to learn that. This is the hardest thing about surgery. Learning to slow down so your body can heal fully.

But I am getting stronger every day. Today I swam 300 meters - in the warm pool at the Claremont (I never swim in that pool unless the cold pool is closed). It was wonderful. As difficult as it was, it felt heavenly. Much better than on Saturday, when I felt totally demoralized. I felt as if I could have swum more, but I heard all of the voices in my head, telling me "don't over do it". Everyone seems to be telling me that. The truth of the matter is that no one knows what "overdoing it" even is. My surgeon told me I could do anything except sit-ups! Duh!

I'm off to bed. I look forward to going to sleep every night because I know I will wake up a little bit stronger the next day. I have a lot to look forward to.

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