POCT or Post-Op Commentary Talking

Talking to yourself is absolutely normal....

Today has been a real test of my energy level management - I love my friends but have found that talking and being present with them has left me floored for some time afterwards. I feel it's the actual process of concentration and being alert, plus being limited at movement prevents me to get up and play hostess.

My rational mind tells me I mustn't over-do it or I could set my self back so I talk to myself - a skill I learned on a workshop once called commentary-driving, only I call this Post-Op Commentary Talking. 

It goes something like this:

"I am now going to gently ease myself out of this chair and stand up. Now I am mindfully going to walk to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. Oh look, there is a pair of shoes that have been carelessly left in the middle of the room but because I cannot bend down I will not attempt to move them but register that they are in my pathway causing me to navigate around them and not trip up and land flat on my face..."

Talking of limitations, obviously I'm aware that I can't hang out of upstairs windows to wash off the seagull shit so I ask my extremely keen to please partner to do it, as it is impeding my view of the clouds! (Actually he wasn't that keen - who would be?)

Going off on a tangent, can I recommend fruit to you. It's blooming marvellous considering nearly two weeks ago I was almost passing out on the toilet with 8/10 pain, this has reduced to 3/10 discomfort so 'well done body' - remember with POCT you can actually tell your body how well it's doing at healing.

Now for a fruit salad...

Bowel issues

Oh dear, my healthy appetite plus iron tablets plus abdominal surgery plus inactivity has led to this no laughing matter...let's talk constipation....

When you have not had a bowel motion for four days then seriously consider all forms of laxative or an enema. When I had endometriosis on my bowel I experienced severe pain but that was nothing compared to post-op  bowel blockage pain - it really, really, really hurts.

I have been drinking plenty of water, eating veg and fruit, natural foods etc but the effects of the iron tablets, codeine and surgery have bunged me up like a cork on a bottle that has been at sea for decades and nothing short of dynamite will ease its constricted state to release its contents. On that oceanic theme, I can tell you not to be regular makes me crabby  - it may sound strange to you but I can almost cope with all the other failings of my poor body when I've had a good shit!

Other things to consider while we're getting down and dirty:

• The catheter is my friend (at least at night time) - I've been sleeping like a log (not sure who first came up with that analogy as logs are the least likely things to sleep having all manner of insects crawling about inside them), so deep in fact that when I wake I feel strange and heavy (perhaps that's where the log theme comes in). For example, last night I weed 1000ml into my night bag so thank god I didn't have to get up and down to the loo.
• Feeling lethargic, breathless and broken from hours of surgery plus drugs plus a drain in my side, plus a catheter, plus a couple of canulas (one of which decided to eject itself from my vein thus depriving me of morphine), then my body being pricked for blood, injected with anti-coagulant, quaffing pills like a raver at a festival....
• Two bags of someone else's blood later and I'm told I'll feel like a new woman (that's infinitely better than being told I'll feel like an old woman or a used woman for that matter.)
• Poo Poo Poo Poo Poo - my specialist subject. Ask me anything about it - don't be shy, it's got to come out in the open sooner or later.