Recovering from brain surgery has been very interesting. It has been three weeks and I am still not feeling like myself.

Physically, my head feels like it was ripped open and sewed back. Oh wait, it has! I woke up after the surgery with a splitting headache and sick feeling in my stomach.

The week I spent in hospital the hydromorph did a great job of keeping the pain away.  Small dry meals and sips of juice and ginger ale didn’t stay down without Gravol until day three.

Thank goodness my mom had come out from Alberta to keep me company and help me with my recovery. 

By day four the pain was manageable and I was recovering enough to be eating solid food.  I was coherent and excited for visitors.  It was exhausting to talk.  Thank goodness most of my friends did all the talking and could just lay in my hospital bed and listen. The nurses only had to check my vitals every 8 hours.  

Day five I wanted to go home.  Recovering in the noisy hospital was hard.  The uncomfortable bed was making me home sick.  Kris came in every morning before he went to work and brought me coffee and kept me posted on how much Jasper missed me.  I think he missed me too but, of course, would never tell me.  The pain was being managed with T3 and I yearned for the familiarity of my home. I was eating normal food and was taking very slow walks around my floor with my mom. 

This was the day the nurse took off my bandages.  My scar was itchy under all the dressing and the gauze was wound around my head so tight felt like it had shrunk my skull.   Their was a drain tube in my scalp so that it would drain the   fluid instead of causing swelling in my brain and the nurse removed that, too.

I hadn’t washed my hair in a week and I was only able to have a sponge bath to stay clean. With all the bandages off the nurse was able to run shampoo through the side of my head that was not shaved.  The hardest part of recovery was not being able to simple tasks.  She also had to help keep me sturdy while I had a real rinse off in the shower.

Kris picked me up and I needed a wheel chair to make it all the way down his truck.  Things that used to be ‘norma’ tasks have made me tired beyond words.

I wish I had filmed Jaspers reaction to his mama coming home.  His whole body was vibrating and Kris had to hold him back from jumping all over me.  Seeing his wagging tail was the best home coming gift I should have asked for.

It hurt to lay down flat.  Due to the discomfort, I spent the first few nights (and days) laying on the lazy boy recliner. In order to keep on top of the pain, and my antibiotics I set my alarm to go off every four hours.     I need help going up and down the stairs but thankfully able to go to the bathroom on my own.  The first five days at home were all the same.  Sleep, take pills, eat, sleep watch TV, go to the bathroom, sleep, cuddle with Jasper, eat and sleep some more.  I am pretty sure I was sleeping 18 hours a day.

After four to five days at home I traded the T3’s for extra strength Tylenol.   I was getting stir crazy and mom helped me around the block for some very short, easy walks. I knew that recovering would be hard, yet I am still struggling to take it easy.  One day at a time. 

Lacey Lee Elliott