Update of the moment

[jbailey]

Hey - here's an update:

* I'm off the steroids. Last one was last Friday, spent the weekend enjoying the withdrawal symptoms, and already enjoying the benefits, like my skin is clearing up even more, I'm starting to get my voice back, and I'm less inclined to be angry at the vacuum cleaner when it runs into me. Angie tells me I'm a lot more fun to have around. Which is encouraging when one is totally dependent on another person for food. =)

* I seem to have gotten sick. It took me a bit to figure this one out, but the withdrawal symptoms seemed to be going on longer than expected. Then Angie started showing signs of them, after Leif was fussy for a day. Blech. =( Which explains why I can be cold under covers when the thermostat claims that it's 74°F (No idea in civilised measurements, sorry). Hopefully this passes quickly. Time for lots of breathing and napping. Like I could be sleeping any more during the day.

* My energy levels are getting better. I saw Andrew Pollock at noon today when he returned a CD to me, and he commented that from my walking you can barely tell I had surgery 3 weeks ago. Except for how slowly I'm going. And the full body turn in order to look to see if cars are coming when I cross the road. And the huge production to step up onto the sidewalk. A 5 minute walk no long requires me to sleep for 2 hours. Can't say the same for a 10 minute walk yet, though.

* Staples are out! I have two more days of antibiotics because the incision is still red and giving off more heat than they'd like so I'm back in next Tuesday for another checkup. Last week, the surgeon wasn't surprised by the healing rate given that the steroids are an immunosuppressant, though. So hopefully next Tuesday I get a clean bill of health and then just have to wait 2 weeks before getting some movement restrictions lifted and starting PT. And tomorrow I'll have a shower without fetish^WPlastic Wrap all over the incision. I can't shower unassisted yet, though, since getting most of my body would count as "reaching"

* Short-term disability finally approved my claim. For 6 weeks anyway. Then they want me to return to work or get better justification from my surgeon. I'm sure he'll be all professional, but I'd love it if the letter read "My client takes 10 minutes to get out of bed. He takes vicodin every 4 hours, and my nurse just recommended Oxycodone so that he can sleep more than 2.5 hours at a stretch. What do you think?"

* We have the biopsy results. And like every other biopsy result, we have... Inconclusive! Whee! At least they're no longer using the word "Sarcoma", but instead have settled on Osteoblastoma. But there's a catch - there are two types of Osteoblastoma, Aggressive and not. (I'm sure there's technical terms, but I'm tired and didn't catch them). The inconclusive bit is whether it's aggressive or not. During surgery, however, they treated it as aggressive because they didn't have the information and did what they'd do to minimize the chance of it coming back by taking out lots of extra tissue. I still get to see an Oncologist, in case there's something interesting through all of this still to learn.

* Otherwise, schoolwork extensions are all approved, our new bank likes us and is doing good things. Coworkers are popping in and saying hi, so I'm not feeling totally isolated. Heinlein is less good the fewer drugs I'm on. Or maybe it's because I'm reading "Friday".

Things are still getting better every day, even through all the sickness and such. I'm trying to catch up with people on Jabber. I still can't lift the laptop, so IRCs out until I figure out where I put the charger to the N810. It's somewhere out of reach, so as far away as the moon as far as I'm concerned.

I also want to take a moment to say thanks to Sandy and Jamu for their visits here - We're trying to arrange for people to visit us on the weekends and help us return the place to a clean state, with Kit starting the visits this coming weekend. Angie's got her hands full with Leif, and I get the joy of sitting in the corner wishing I could be useful. The result is that the house slowly falls apart over the course of a week, and hopefully weekend visitors will help us keep some measure of sanity here.

Peace and love, all.

Tks,
Jeff Bailey

Comments

[ze-dinosaur.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's going well (or as well as can reasonably be expected). I hope your recovery is super speedy.

[jbailey.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Eric! I'm feeling really quite good, which is nice. I've heard from some other people who had similar surgeries about ongoing pain and such. So far I'm confident that I'll return to a drug-free generally normal existance in relatively short order.