"Gee, It's Great to Be Back Home Again"

I think John Denver said it best in that song.

Anyway, I got back home from the hospital on a Saturday, the day before Halloween. That meant my husband had to shop for candy and run up and down the stairs to get the door for the trick or treaters. I usually handle the shopping tasks and we alternate on answering the door, but this year, it was alllll his.

First things first. As soon as I got home, I wanted to take a bath, but a nap beckoned me after our long and tiring car ride home from the hospital. Sophie and Piet, my black cat, snuggled up to Mommy, and we all settled in for a few hours. Then, I took my pain meds and got into the shower with a lot of help from my DH. In fact, he got in with me, and we scrubbed me down together. It felt very good to get my hair washed after being at the hospital for six days. I usually jump in the shower daily ... every morning ... so that first shower was a gift.

The next few days, indeed the next few weeks, were mixes of sleeping, watching TV, sleeping, trying to see how much I could do around the house without hurting myself, sleeping ... you get the idea. Every time I got out of bed, I had to put my brace on. I did get out with my hubby and Sophie exactly two weeks after I had my surgery. I put my brace on, took my Percocet and off we went for a walk in the state park near our house. The day before my operation, we had walked there, and I had asked Hans to sprinkle my ashes here if, for some reason, I didn't make it through the surgery. There was that chance, there always is. This is where we always walk Sophie, and I thought I'd at least be near them both that way. But here I was, walking on my own, albeit in a brace, alive and well. Well, almost well. At least healing, hopefully fusing.

I'd lost ten pounds while at the hospital, mainly because I just wasn't hungry. I was much more thirsty, so I drank iced tea, ate lemon ice and apple sauce and picked at the rest of what was offered. I remember a particularly large meatball with some spaghetti and sauce that I pushed aside one evening. It's not that the food was bad. I just wasn't that hungry, which is odd for me. Besides, I was still a bit (well, more than a bit) constipated from the surgery and the pain meds didn't help in that department, either. My catheter wasn't appealing dinnerwear, neither were those drains on either side of my butt. I think the Percocet killed my appetite at home and furthered my constipation. I figured I didn't "go" for two weeks. Duxolax and suppositories fixed that eventually, but I'd suggest anyone who's about to have the same kind of surgery not hide their stool softeners like I did in the hospital. Ducolax is your friend, or as someone who was in the same situation as I asked, "Vanna, can I buy a bowel?"