040408:0915am

• been up since 5:30am
• moving left and right (slowly)
• got up on my own two feet
• used walker to go from left side of bed to the door and back
• sat down in a chair
• called mom and mia to tell them my progress

Written 050308

Two days after my back surgery.  I’ve had lots of visitors and phone calls.  My instrumentation site incision and iliac graft site have pain, but not anything unacceptable or out of line with what I would consider common pain.  I explained to my doctor clearly (I thought) that I have had a history of addiction and that I have had a sucessful recovery for many years.  He knows that I have managed a drug regimin (including narcotics) for the previous four years that I’ve waited to have this surgery.  Prior to my surgery I had many conversations of how much of a wimp I’ve become in my old age and that I have both a lower tolerance for pain and a increased tolerance for pain medication.  Not a good place for a thirty-eight year old recovering drug addict having major back surgery, to be.

The day after surgery at 6 a.m. the physical therapist came and got me up on the bed sitting up and then up into a chair.  I gut up on my feet but was yelping and screaming throught the process.  I was dizzy and then they layed my back down.  Then they pulled out my catheter and kept filling me up with IV fluids.  By the afternoon I had to pee so the nurse got me up on my feed and onto a potty but I couldn’t go, so they got me back into bed.  I was exhausted. 

Today PT came again at 6 a.m. and this time I asked for a pain meds to be delivered before they arrived so that I would be in good shape pain-wise when the therapist arrived.  I wanted to be able to get through the therapy session.  They gave me a shot, which took great care of the pain, but had a problem; I passed out when the therapist tried to get me up on my feet. 

So that didn’t work.

Having trouble sleeping.  Really wanted to get into that chair to sit, but having trouble moving my hips/lower body at all.