Sleeping with the Enemy
I can't believe that I had my surgery 11 days ago!
I wasn't going to post today, but I felt like doing it tonight, so here I am.
I slept pretty well in my own bed last night! I woke up a couple of times to change positions, and the last time I was in quite a bit of pain. Then when I woke up this morning, I was in even more pain. Pain is my enemy. I hate it. I have a very low pain tolerance. (Big baby, remember?) But I'm sleeping with it. Pain - the enemy.
But guess what?! I won't have to sleep with the enemy tonight! I got a new prescription for painkillers! I only had 3 left so I was trying to conserve and not take two last night. But now I don't have to! I can take two tonight and hopefully I'll sleep even better.
I'm doing okay with alternating between Tylenol and Motrin during the day, so don't need anything stronger than that.
I hope that the people I'm about to talk about don't mind, but I need to tell y'all something really cool. It seems that more than 3 people are reading my blog! (Can you believe it?!) I received a couple of emails - one from Cynthia in LA and one from Mary Jo in Kentucky. It seems that heart issues have touched both of their lives in some way and my blog has been helping them.
Cynthia and Mary Jo- I'm so glad that I have been able to help you by sharing my experiences. Thank you so much for contacting me. (And Cynthia knows Ellen Degeneres's brother so I'll be expecting an introduction at some point. Maybe she can speed along the response to my email...)
Seriously, you two - if there's anything I've learned from this, it's that things happen for a reason, and that they will turn out fine. And try not to stress out too much about things. I wish I hadn't stressed myself out so much. It really wasn't as bad as I had expected or anticipated.
Take care and know that I am thinking about you. Keep in touch and keep reading my blog!
I wasn't going to post today, but I felt like doing it tonight, so here I am.
I slept pretty well in my own bed last night! I woke up a couple of times to change positions, and the last time I was in quite a bit of pain. Then when I woke up this morning, I was in even more pain. Pain is my enemy. I hate it. I have a very low pain tolerance. (Big baby, remember?) But I'm sleeping with it. Pain - the enemy.
But guess what?! I won't have to sleep with the enemy tonight! I got a new prescription for painkillers! I only had 3 left so I was trying to conserve and not take two last night. But now I don't have to! I can take two tonight and hopefully I'll sleep even better.
I'm doing okay with alternating between Tylenol and Motrin during the day, so don't need anything stronger than that.
I hope that the people I'm about to talk about don't mind, but I need to tell y'all something really cool. It seems that more than 3 people are reading my blog! (Can you believe it?!) I received a couple of emails - one from Cynthia in LA and one from Mary Jo in Kentucky. It seems that heart issues have touched both of their lives in some way and my blog has been helping them.
Cynthia and Mary Jo- I'm so glad that I have been able to help you by sharing my experiences. Thank you so much for contacting me. (And Cynthia knows Ellen Degeneres's brother so I'll be expecting an introduction at some point. Maybe she can speed along the response to my email...)
Seriously, you two - if there's anything I've learned from this, it's that things happen for a reason, and that they will turn out fine. And try not to stress out too much about things. I wish I hadn't stressed myself out so much. It really wasn't as bad as I had expected or anticipated.
Take care and know that I am thinking about you. Keep in touch and keep reading my blog!
posted by Julia Hart at
9:27 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Julia,
It sounds like you're doing better and better. You bring back recent memories like the pain of laughter. My oldest friend came to see me in the hospital with a bag of Stuff. I could see in his face that he was anxious for me to open it up. Since we always laugh together and have a lot of private jokes I asked him if there were laughs in the bag. He just smiled. I had to tell him that I couldn't look because it would hurt so much which would then make me cough which would hurt even more. He was disappointed but understood. I forgot about the yawning thing. That's weird isn't it. THat it would hurt to yawn. It's so frustrating having to suppress it. AS far as showering I bought a seat for the shower which was a Godsend. It was so nice to just sit there and let the hot water hit my aching neck, back and shoulders. So, just wanted to check in and say hi. Keep feeling better and better.
Johnboy (from ACHA message board)
By
Anonymous, at 11:11 AM, July 26, 2006
Julia...
I think we ALL stressed about surgery beforehand and realized it wasn't as bad as we made it out to be. Come on now... I have had hospital phobia all of my life and then it was MY turn to be the patient with all of those needles... YIKES! The one that freaked me out the most ahead of time was the IV in the neck and I got myself all worked up about that... thank goodness they couldn't get it in my neck afterall!
Yes, laughing hurts, but sneezing hurts more... my advice for sneezing that helped me... not only to hold your pillow against your chest (always a good idea to keep the pillow close by because you never know when that great sneeze is gonna come), but I found that standing up for the sneezes helped too. Otherwise it felt like everything bunched together inside of me, whereas standing up everything was kinda "stretched" out and couldn't all go flying towards the center.
Each new day will get easier... even though you will also have days of frustration too! :) But it is temporary... something I had to tell myself often!
You know what I noticed more than anything... how few bathrooms are handicap accessible - some were a downright nightmare with the limited use of our arms for reaching to get toilet paper or paper towels. Let alone trying to get in or out of the door... whatever way you have to pull, I learned I could kick any door open, but pulling was more of a challenge!
Take care from one heart to another...
Traci (ACHA)
By
Anonymous, at 10:46 PM, July 26, 2006
Pam - It was so nice to talk to you today, and I so appreciate the pep talk. I hope that my experience goes as well as your seems to be going, and hopefully we will meet in a couple of weeks in Rochester. I will be the one who looks like they were just hit by a truck!
By
Cynthia, at 3:22 PM, July 27, 2006
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