Angela's Blog

Hi.

Well, that surgery definitely slowed me down but I'm still kicking. I feel like I'm trapped in a perpetual Thorzine shuffle. Oh yeah. But I'm doing better. Yesterday I only took Advil twice and it's already 11 and I haven't taken any today! Not to say I don't hurt. My arm is crazy painful at times but it mostly just comes in these little spurts of stabbing pain. No warning and before I know it I'm crying like a little girl. Guess that's not so bad considering I'm just a big girl but you know what I mean. Usually somewhere where I'd rather not be crying to boot. Like the grocery store or Target. Makes me wonder, do any of you have surgery experience? Does anybody know how long I should expect this to last? Every time it happens it just makes me more thankful that I don't remember any of the other surgeries I had. Wowza! That must've been tough. Don't think for a minute that I'm so hard core or anything like that. I was just lucky enough to be in coma otherwise you'd have heard lots of whining and mewing. Wow, can't believe I just said that - lucky enough to be in coma. Who'd have thought that would ever come?!?! I'll take it. Besides the pain the whole arm is just pretty swollen but is healing up. The last 2 times we took the dressing off there was no blood or leakage or discharge. I know, nasty words, but I have faith that you all can handle it. I've even been hanging out for the last 2 and a half hours without the ace bandages on. Just airing out the incision a little bit.

And I'm able to shower just fine. I need help but not that much. It is a little embarrassing when you have to yell for your Mom to come wash your back and your right arm for you. At least she's used to seeing me in the buff. I was just littler then. She was joking with me and saying that it reminded her of just a few months ago. I did have a little fit of exposing myself when I was coming out of the coma. Thank you stage IV. I'm sorry to any of you who saw more than you bargained for during that time. Especially you, Ron. Sorry. Guess we're just on a whole new level now.

I had a pretty wild experience yesterday too. I went to a new acupuncturist and he said that he could feel that I needed work done on the right side of my brain. Crazy. Since nobody else has said that. And considering my whole left side still has pins and needles I think the right side of my brain does need some work. It was pretty cool when he told me there is this whole host of issues that Chinese medicine people usually pick up on when someone has had a bad trauma and he said I'm not showing any signs of them. So that's good. I attribute that to you, Abby.

Let's see, the rest of today will just be therapy galore. I have PT, OT, and speech this afternoon. Good times. Long day at Harborview ahead. Hopefully I'll have enough energy to make it through all of them. I think I will. But I'll be a big blob of mush when it's all over. Lots of paying attention is tough for me right now. Makes me pretty tired. Usually if I can anchor my head I do a little better. Pretty obvious why I'm not back to work yet. Don't think I would last very long in the lab. It'll be a trip when I do go back. The whirling dervish that everyone is used to will actually have to take those 15 minute breaks every 2 hours. Maybe even sitting down. People won't even recognize me at first if I'm not chewing my fur and going fifty miles a minute. I'm sure I'll get back to my ridiculous pace eventually but I'll have to work up to it.

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Ang