Day 7

Today was a big day... I put on shoes for the first time in a week, got into the car and went to the mall. Yes, it was my first big outing.

Please note that no matter how deep the discounts, clothes shopping one week after your hysterectomy is not a good idea. You may think that your belly's swelling has gone down significantly - and then you try on a jersey that fits very well except for this poochy stomach, and freak out. Fortunately I grasped the sheer idiocy of it all pretty quickly and moved on to simply enjoying being out in the world.

We choose the mall because it's warm and has lots of benches. If it were spring I might've gone for a walk around the block, but today it was too cold and windy for that sort of thing. I picked up some arnica, because I forgot to do so before my surgery, and walked very, very, very slowly around the building.

And then I came home. Phew, what an exciting life I am leading!

Let's see... I didn't drive, for two reasons - first, I'm still taking vicodin too often to consider myself safe for driving, and second, I'm still moving too slowly. I'd worry about my reaction time if I needed to step on the pedal suddenly or swerve or something. My doctor said I was safe to drive once I felt well enough to stop taking vicodin.

My doctor also told me I should avoid lifting anything over fifteen to twenty pounds for two weeks, and to use my judgment on that sort of thing. I am definitely not ready for heavy lifting one week out, I'll tell you that for nothing - our eight pound cat is about as much as I feel comfortable lifting.

Today I didn't over-do things - but I probably did as much as I was capable of doing. I'm running a slight fever now, and am completely exhausted. I'm having a fairly respectable level of pain as well, so it's back to bed rest for me. My belly feels pretty sore and tight.

I'll admit to feeling frustrated with my progress. But I have to keep reminding myself that it's only a week out from major surgery, that I was in a bad place before surgery and thus my resistance and resilience was not where it would have ideally been. It's just... I have less than a week until I am on my own, as my husband will go back to work, and I'm getting a little panicky about that.

Still. One day at a time... right?