TKMaxx opened! I hit gold and found the exact bag I wanted to replace my big grey handbag, 1/3 RRP.
I had a burst of cookbook cooking. Felt like really concentrating on the cooking process and using different flavours, rather than just basic efficient food prepping. These are from a Bill Grainger book.
G visited! We had a pretty relaxed weekend but did the tour of Maitland Gaol, which has a mulberry tree. It was good to have a fresh appreciation of prisons, it's a dark part of society.
Seriously the rooms (cells) are dank and tiny, you can't see out of the window and it doesn't let in any light either. This is one of the bigger cells.
We went to the GF cafe at the prison afterwards which is lovely. Highly recommended if you are GF and need to stop in the Hunter. It's called Bread and Water.
I had an ambition to try smoking meat, so for Mum's birthday I had family over for lunch. I had to light the charcoal in the morning, which took so long but eventually all caught. Then you put the coal into the bottom of the smoker, add a bowl of water, and marinated meat (chooks). Then you put the lid on but the vent open and it stays hot for hours. I did 4 hours and that was only just enough time for the size chooks I had, probably 5 hours ideally but refill the water bowl.
I put down a rug for baby crawling! Had a lovely afternoon hanging out with my family and video calling in Heather from Brisbane.
Bought myself a little pink daisy also, on the left. The lemon is a shrubby one rather than a standard. Also admire one of my monster poppies eventually flowered en mass in red. And at the front are my summer seedlings.
I got a few vases like this, which is better than nothing but not what I was hoping for with all my different varieties.
I had a haircut and it turned out very shorter but not bad, just different.
A week before surgery I went kayaking near Tocal with one (was supposed to be two) colleague. I have had really good energy, which is surprising. The zoladex implants wrecked my sleep, but overall I've had much better battery power. I added more workouts until I was regularly doing 3 a week just like the old days - I had to cut back to 1 a week because I was constantly tired and sore. Cut out a lot of the treats of winter as well, and even lost a kilo or two. Anyway, just thankful that I've been able to actually live a healthy active life again.
I bought a free desk on facebook marketplace, and took my computer and everything home, and worked from home for the week before surgery. It was to avoid catching a cold or anything inconvenient. I was actually very run down though, had a coldsore and felt very tired, so worked short days and didn't do any workouts and just rested in the lead up to Friday.
On the Friday, I washed the car, whipper snipped, and then showered and waited to go to the hospital. I forgot to take my 10am pill and remembered halfway to the hospital at 11.45 so had a stressful decision to go back home and just be late, but hospitals always factor in waiting time. I got there at 12.30, paid my excess thingy, chose my food from the menu, and waited.
Then I got called in for my quick interview and weigh in, then popped behind a curtain to get changed into the stockings and gown and put my clothes in my suitcase. This photo was 1.30pm.
Hopped into bed under a heated blanket and they rolled me around the corridors into the little room outside the operating theatre and waited, thinking on psalm 23 which Bec had sent me earlier, because its really about being calm and waiting. Then I met the nurse and anesthetist and explained about the pill timing. Got rolled into the operating theatre and saw the robot they use and then ...................
....... woke up in recovery sometime around 7.30, all tubed up and realised it was too late for one of my parents to visit by the time I got out of recovery. I heard a few conversations and the drainage tube out of my belly had "dumped" a lot of "blood coloured fluid" in the first 2 hours, and blood pressure was low, so there was a chance I had an internal bleed and would need another surgery, but not likely. But that made them decide to send me to ICU for the night so they could keep an eye on my blood pressure better.
So at 10:30 I was in ICU meeting the lovely team there, and they gave me a sandwich for dinner and connected wires to me. I had oxygen, a needle in each hand one doing fluid, a catheter, a tube draining my tummy, 4 ECG patches stuck under my boob to track my heart, a peg on my finger for oxygen, a blood pressure band on my arm, and a pain button (that I probably used too much more to make me drowsy and sleep than for the pain). I didn't sleep much because ICU isn't quiet, it wasn't exciting but it was interesting, there was another patient needing stuff and the staff just chatting and my blood pressure thing puffing up every hour setting off a beeper when I was too low.
I forgot my inflatable stockings inflating every 10 seconds because I have had spontaneous DVT (clots) before. It's a lot of things. Glad I took photos to remember it all!
Anyway the next morning I got to be disconnected from it all, remove one needle and drip and the yucky drain, have a shower sitting down, put the inflatable stockings back on though, got into my own underwear and nightie which felt a lot better, and go to my own room.
The main problem I find is I don't really sleep on my back, and that's the only non painful position after abdominal surgery. But I do my best pretending to sleep on my side by raising the leg end of the bed and turning my head sideways.
I enjoyed the food. Mum visited on Saturday afternoon.
On Sunday morning I slept in a chair, saw the Dr, and got permission to go, and in the afternoon I checked out, wheelchaired to the car because so weak. Very sleepy. Wanted to sleep in the car. Slept as soon as I lay down. Slept again.
Felt a lot better on Monday and had 3 visitors and spent most of the day on the couch, and similar on Tuesday, also watching SAS, and then I felt worse, so I slept more on Wednesday morning and arvo, had another nap on Thursday morning, but walked to the nearby cafe with dad for lunch. Finished my course of antibiotics and stopped taking panadol. Friday I removed dressings and wounds are now looking good.
I have been having friends pop in to deliver little things and visit to do a puzzle which has been nice. A sort of hospitality. That has been a blessing.
