Two Weeks: Post Surgery

On Wednesday, December 1, I went back to St. Louis for a follow-up appointment with Dr. Thompson. In the waiting room, we started talking to another patient and it turns out he is actually a radiologist from Utah who has seen one case of MALS but only when he was doing his training. I was the first actual person, he had seen that had MALS. He said, it was strange that I had MALS, because on his plane ride over he had been reading/studying about MALS.

Dr. Thompson has allowed me to go back to school and start driving short distances but I still cannot lift anything over 10 pounds for the next three months. I also have to wait a little longer before I start putting lotions and different creams on the scar.

I measured the incision last night, and it is six inches long and looks like a pen scratch. It still feels really bruised and is extremely sore. But I can now see it, because the steristrips were taken off.

Going into this I knew that recovery would be hard, but it is so much harder than I thought. It is not the incision site that makes recovery hard, but the other aspects. I still have trouble eating and I have lost more weight than I needed to lose. I cannot grocery shop by myself because of the weight limit and I also have to watch how much I put into my backpack for classes because of the weight limit. Even though I had this surgery to correct my pain and to allow me to go back to normal activity, I still cannot go back to being as active as I was until end of January. If I am lucky, then it will be the beginning on January. The whole process is complicated and upsetting, and at times it is very hard for me to deal with. When visiting with Dr. Thompson he said that it is not unusual for someone who went through a surgery, like I did, to become depressed and to have trouble eating. He said this happens because my whole body is trying to deal with the changes that occurred from the surgery. It all makes sense, but I wish it would all be over so much quicker than it is going to be.

This is definately something that has changed certain aspects of my life. If I had never read the newspaper article then I would still be watching how much I eat and be limiting myself to how much activity I would be doing. Now that this has been done I have the opportunity to have a more active life. And for that, I am extremely grateful.