Recovery

It's been nearly a week since my surgery and I think I'm recovering pretty well.  Much better than last time, that's for sure.  I finished my hospital pain meds on Saturday and only took 2 doses of other pain meds before I stopped.  I've been on no pain meds for 2 days now.  There's still a little bit of pain, but nothing unmanageable.

Unfortunately, it seems I am mildly allergic to the Cutifilm brand dressings that they used.  These dressings have a gauze pad with a very thin sticky border, and its this that irritated my skin.  Normally I don't have particularly sensitive skin so it was a bit of a surprise.  I have red, irritated marks all over my abdomen and they're maddeningly itchy!  Dave reckons that I also got itchy when I had my birthmark removed, the last time I used these dressings, but I don't remember.  I wish I'd realised soon that there was a problem because I've been suffering through the itchiness and it's left all these red marks.

I had acupuncture again today, the second time since the surgery, and he stuck a LOT of needles around my 4 surgery wounds - 16 in total, more than I've had in at once before I think.  My belly is still quite sore, so they didn't do any on my back, luckily.  I'm certain that at least partial credit for my quick recovery goes to the acupuncture.

I'm getting sick of having to sleep on my back all the time.  I'm going to try sleeping on my side tonight and see how I go.  I don't normally sleep on my back, I find it quite uncomfortable, and I've had to requisition 2 additional pillows to get comfortable each night, which is annoying.

I'm back at work tomorrow, which I think will be fine.  I'm glad I didn't have any less time off and that I could take the whole week to recover and get my healing well underway.  Post-op follow-up is in two weeks, so I probably won't update until then.