Out of the Hospital - 10/23/07

Well so i don't know if the tone of this is going to change now that I know that people might actually read it. . . I guess we'll see. I'm kinda new to the whole blog thing, and so it seems to me the conundrum is chronology, really. Like, ideally in this post I would talk about the next thing that happened after the last post, right? But it seems like what people probably really want to know right now, is how I'm doing right now, eh? Cuz if I just go chronologically, who knows how long it'll be til I get to now, and by then, something crazy exciting may have happened... Ah, and so I guess I answered my own question - the nature of the blog has already changed simply by the admission that I'm considering the will of the people :P (well, the potential people who may be reading this...). I wonder if they'll dare/care to read the other posts? I wonder if I'll start referring to them/you in the second person instead of third? Anyone ever read Dear Mr. Henshaw? It's one of those Judy Blume type books where the kid starts a diary but doesn't know who his audience is so he pretends he's writing to Mr. Henshaw, who I think was one of his teachers or something.

Well, okay, then, I guess I'll start with now, and fill in bits and pieces later. So, I got out of the hospital yesterday (10/22) and was feeling decent though slightly nauseated (as a side note, the word "nauseous" is actually an adjective describing the thing that makes you "nauseated" - A quick search gives you an explanation. Even I usually just say nauseous, but it's funny to hear some of the docs and nurses use nauseated, even after you describe your symptoms as nauseous: "Oh, I'm feeling a little nauseous." "Feeling nauseated, eh? Well I'll see if I can get you something for that." - well I guess it's funny to a grammar/word usage freak like myself...). They let me start eating solid foods a couple days ago, so I'm eating fairly normally, which is nice after a few days of only clear liquids, nasty diarrhea inducing liquids, and no liquids at all... but that's for another post.

Anyhow, so I've got Vicodin to keep me out of too much pain, but every day the pain seems less and less. It hurts mostly when I get up to walk around, or when I try and cough or laugh or basically do anything that uses the abdominal muscles. For instance, I was just watching some Flight of the Conchords clips on YouTube, which had me laughing so much I really can't watch anymore right now. My favorite so far is "The Humans are Dead". So that's the main thing I guess, is just abdominal pain. I've got stitches from the incision just below my belly button - the scar is about 6 inches long though I suppose not quite a scar yet - and a little hole next to the incision area where they had a drainage catheter stuck for a while. I have to keep that area dry for a couple days but it should heal up pretty quickly (first order of business when I got home was to Saran wrap the catheter drain area so I could take a real shower). They also shaved the pubic area some, but not thoroughly, so it felt strangely prickly when I first ran my fingers down there. When I first got out of surgery that whole area would kind of jump at the touch when people tried to feel around, but it seems to be much less sensitive now.

Lying down generally feels pretty good, sitting can be okay, but standing up and walking are still the most painful (though it's also the best thing for me to be doing). I have a Foley catheter inserted in my penis to drain out the bladder, but that doesn't cause too much aggravation. I can switch it from a big bag that takes a long time to fill up to a leg bag that I can strap to my calf. Inside the house the big bag is actually more convenient, since you want to have it below your bladder at all times and you can't put your legs up when you have the leg bag. Funny thing is that the last time I had a catheter they didn't give me a big bag, which I guess is pretty important when you're sleeping to keep the urine from flowing back into your bladder and causing an infection, which I think is exactly what happened. I guess you can't trust the emergency room to give you comprehensive information or treatment... For those of you following along, that infection episode was right before I had the TURP surgery.

So, yeah, all in all, I feel pretty good right now. Don't have a whole lot of energy, but my mom's keeping me company at home and there's plenty of entertainment (books, TV, video games, the world wide internet...). Frankly the hospital stay was much shorter than I expected, so I'm just happy to be out and recovering so quickly.