Recovery and This Blog: Please Hold

I am home from the hospital, home and still giggling over the note found taped to a hospital bed above. In my mind, Winnipeg is a place of blunt practicalities, a place with little truck for euphemistic conversation; apparently it shares this with the health care industry.

I may have been far too optimistic about my ability to blog much in these, the early days of recovery. Even yesterday, after waking up from surgery bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with minimal pain, I figured I’d be bounding out of there in no time, reading for a relaxing recovery week at home and cranking up the posting on my blog, especially about all the media stuff I’ve been mulling.

Then came the overnight, a nine-hour stretch of swelling, bleeding, and pain that Tylenol 3s don’t seem to reach. Last night was a nightmare, despite the ministrations of the very kind VGH staff that tended to me as best they could while I just flat out wept.

I am now at home, and it’s a little come-and-go; a few good minutes, followed by 60 bad ones. If anyone reading this has had nose surgery, drop me a line, will ya? I’d be interested in hearing how your healing went. I think I was drastically unprepared for this part of recovery, and I really want to know when the worst will be over. “It’s different for everyone!”

I will say  this: besides the unexpectedly grotesque physical fallouts of surgery (my first surgery! At least, first that I can remember) it was overall a pleasant experience and a stirring reminder to me of just how much I generally appreciate our health-care system.  I feel lucky to be able to access this for a quality-of-life procedure that, I hope, will really change my life.