Recovering from major surgery
Surgical recovery is such a painfully slow process. Recovery from major surgery even more so. And although you might think and hope I'd get some kind of discount on time required because nothing was actually done internally, that is sadly not the case. Major surgery is major surgery.
Since I've been eating solid foods, I've been on a special low fiber diet. It's extremely similar to the one suggested in oh so many cancer pamphlets. All raw vegetables are forbidden (I prefer most vegies raw), anything with tough skins (apples, peaches and many other fruit, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers) is forbidden, anything with seeds or nuts (crunchy peanut butter, tomatoes, cucumbers, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, etc.) are forbidden, anything that can cause gas (the whole cabbage family, carbonated drinks, many others) are forbidden. I've eaten a lot of mashed potatoes (pealed, obviously) and very well boiled carrots and green beans. All meats are okay, so long as their easy to digest, and while I'm off chemotherapy my restrictions on runny eggs and rare beef have been lifted (sushi is technically okay, but so many have seeds and raw vegitables that it's still essentially forbidden, also I'm in Elliot Lake, Ontario, so it's a moot point).
We're starting to reintroduce other foods. Yesterday I had chip truck poutine, with skin still on the potatoes (my preference). I'm finishing up a box of Cheerios (2g of fiber per serving, which was allowed) and will move on to Shreddies (6g, previously forbidden). I'm also going to start eating peppers again.
Internally, the recovery is going wonderfully, considering that colon cancer is the whole reason for this mess.
The physical incision is where my real challenges lie. The top ~10cm have healed well, and the staples could probably be removed. I don't get to see the bottom ~10cm quite so clearly, I'm fat and my belly is in the way (~5 of those centimeters are also below the belt, so my angle is bad) are similarly healed, but the staples and the closed incision are more painful to me because of how pants sit on your waist. These sections have both looked pretty good since I was discharged two weeks ago.
The middle section is not so good. This area is where my belly is widest, and where all the muscles for twisting and supporting yourself are. The incision has pulled apart a bit somewhere in the past couple weeks (possibly even in hospital, but more likely after discharge), although it doesn't seem to be getting worse right now. The staples are in place, so there's no danger, but it does complicate healing.
Part of the reason this is taking so long is that some chemotherapies can slow your body's wound healing capability. One of the drugs I was on (and discontinued in March) is also a powerful blood thinner, for example, and I really noticed how much more I bled after Thomasin scratched me even weeks after I was off it (which is why we discontinued it so much earlier than the other drugs, it has to be out of your system to get surgery). And who knows what the cancer itself has done to these functions.
My new terror revolves around chemotherapy and wound healing. Because it can harm your ability to heal, you're generally not put on chemotherapy while you have a major wound like this open. And once I start, further healing will be dramatically slowed. So I can't even start chemo until I've healed, but every day without chemo, statistically, shortens my expected life. And, regardless of all that, I'm likely to be in a physically weakened state for months. Right now I don't have an updated prognosis (July 12th, hopefully, but with dread), don't know when I can start chemo again and don't know if I'll be physically able to do any of the things I was hoping to do.
The situation is frustrating, I'm exhausted, often in considerable pain, and I can feel my mental health tumbling. I have excellent support, my parents are wonderful, the poodles are goofy, and my home care nurse is everything you could ask for. But it's just not going to be enough if this goes on long enough.
From the comments
James Petrosky: Anyways here's a Bessie, the creature most devoted to my mental health right now
James Petrosky: I don't know how to talk about surgery this way. I've gotten good at talking about cancer - I've spent months voraciously reading about everything I can think of. Surgery is something entirely different, I know about the operation that was aborted, can explain what it meant to me as a cancer patient, but I just have no context for surgery in general. And, now that my time on the operating table has passed, I just don't have the motivation.
James Petrosky: Also, all these photos were taken within five minutes of each other. Elliot Lake is quite nice with the greenery, I'm not allowed to take the kind of walk required for this photo spread back in Midland.