6 Week Post Op

Hi Ladies
I am now at my 6 week mark in terms of my recovery and I have to say I feel so much better than I had expected. I had my uterus and cervix taken out and my ovaries left intact. I mentioned in my previous thread how this site helped with my recovery. I have to admit that for the past six weeks, everything I did towards my recovery was merely from following the experiences of some of the ladies who have posted on this site. After my disaster with my first gynae, I asked a friend of mine to refer me to her OBGYN. Whilst I really liked this new doctor and was happy to go under the knife as long as it was her, sadly I also found her to be very lacking in terms of information and feedback. I therefore let her handle the "cutting me up" part and as soon as the anesthetic wore off at the hospital, I asked for my cell phone and continued searching the hystersisters site on what to expect next in terms of recovery.
My state of mind - Firstly, I had told myself that I was going to deal with this problem as factually and as scientifically as possible, no emotional attachment to my soon to be lost problematic “lady bits”. I had also psyched myself to be very positive about the whole experience. A few days prior to surgery, I actually lost a long-time “friend” who became very insensitive about my situation (she had just had a baby at 40 and could not understand why I could also not try at 43 and was doing this). I learned that support came from unexpected sources. Prior to surgery I had met with this young guy who had won the Paralympics in London 2012 as a sprinter. He had lost his hands to an electricity freak accident but was still so positive about life. I told him that I was so scared as I was going to surgery the next week. He told me that when his parents explained to him that doctors were going to amputate his hands up to his elbows, and that it was to save his life, he immediately made peace with that and would rather continue living his life than die because of a certain part of his body which he could learn to do without. He was 9yrs at the time. To say this was a deal clincher for me is an understatement.
My recovery – The morning after surgery I was given a "water" breakfast. I also started walking around on the same morning. The second day I was given a proper breakfast so that my bowels could “wake up”. I found out that my incision was glued together and not held by stitches or staples, which was wonderful for me because it meant I did not have to worry about staples or stiches being taken out. Throughout my stay at the hospital, I was given some sort of injections in both my thighs to stop blood clots from forming. I was also given Voltaren suppositories to help with the gas in my tummy. After surgery my stomach looked like I was four months pregnant, I was released after 4 days with only two packs of prescription painkillers! Major surgery and only two packs of prescription pills?! After I ran out of prescription painkillers I bought over the counter painkillers such as Panado and some Voltaren. The first week was spent lying in bed and walking around my backyard. By the second week I was walking relatively upright and could do small chores around the house which did not involve heavy lifting or bending. I felt much better by then. Our worst enemy, constipation! I tried a fibre loaded diet but for some reason this did not work for me. I therefore decided to stand up to my stubborn stomach by only taking soft porridge and orange juice in the morning and waited it out. The first instance nothing happened the whole day so I decided not to eat anything solid until I went. On the second day it gave in by 10h00 on that day. Since then I have been taking soft porridge and juice and some fruits, my tummy usually gives up the fight in the morning and I end up having my lunch and supper.
I only started driving by the 5th week and only for 20 minutes, even when I felt that I could drive by the second week! This would have meant picking up somebody from school because I was home! For my incision I used salt in boiled water and cotton wool to clean it and make sure that it healed quickly and left very minimal scarring. I am a black South African woman and I read somewhere that scarring, such as hyst incisions on black skin, tend to take a thin ropelike form when it heals, so I try to massage the incision area gently for a few minutes each day, without any lotions. I have made sure that I only take showers since coming out of hospital, absolutely no sex (we are back in high school and its absolutely fun); even on the days when I feel fantastic, if I feel like taking a whole day nap I act as if it’s one of the days after my surgery so that hubby and son can wait on me hand and foot, I only have a few weeks to go before they get back to “normal”. On the third week I had wanted to start doing some work, I went into my laptop and saw the thousands of e-mails waiting and decided to stop. It is only a few weeks and my firm will continue to survive without me. One thing I learned was that it did not help to be a superwoman and prove to your colleagues that despite major surgery you still could work, no way! My health comes first! Your life practically comes to a stand still for 6 weeks, it is all about you and nothing or nobody else. Don’t let anyone force you into doing more than your body wants you to during recovery.
The power of the brain - I also found that the brain was such a powerful thing?! On the days I felt a bit better I felt like I could so much more – I only paid for it at night. I am constantly fantasising about sex and had one or two orgasms during my weird dreams in the first two weeks, this is probably when we give in and break the “nothing inside” rule. When walking on the road I have stopped myself from feeling all powerful and that I could break into a normal pre-op jog. I also decided that since it seems like I did not have too many complications, that I would not interrupt the healing process of my body by trying to hurry it up into healing itself. During the first week post op I took some very” popular brand” drops which I was told would help with internal healing of the stitches, I broke out into a rash all over my body, in addition to pain I was itchy all over, you definitely don’t want that combination! My glued up incision is all closed up and some little parts of it have faded into the same colour as my skin. My tummy is flat and I can now wear loose jeans. I still have a bit of pain on my tummy, between my belly button and incision but it is getting lesser as the weeks go by – walking is an absolute necessity. I try and remember to hold my stomach in and do some minor Kegel exercises in order to get everything all tight again. Yesterday was my 6th week check-up and as usual I had to pull out information from my poor old doctor on what I was allowed to now do. When I asked whether I could now start having sex she nearly fainted.