Journal: News & Comment

Up and down

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People I have talked to who have had surgery warned me: there will be ups and downs. And it has been less than a week since my first operation, which removed a small nodule from my rectum before the main procedure in a week or two to remove my actual colon cancer.

Generally, things have improved each day, enough that I was able to get out of the house for dinner and a tour on Saturday, even walk up to the SkyTrain and back for the podcaster meetup yesterday, and take my kids to school this morning. And I've moved back to sleeping in the proper bed (see photo) with my wife instead of in the electric prop-up bed on the other side of the room.

I won't say I overdid it, but I did about the limit, it seems, because after that I came home and slept almost the whole day, with breaks for lunch and a shower, and I had to take more painkillers than usual this evening. Part of my brain thinks I'm a lazy bum, but the sensible part knows that if my right hand is still a bit swollen and store just from the IV I had, the actual surgical site must be still far from healed—especially since the "plumbing" only really started working in earnest down there today too.

It's good practice, I guess. I consider this one to have been a minor operation, but that's only relative: the discharge nurse told my wife that what I had done is about as major a procedure as anyone could have, and still be let out of the hospital the same day. Next time I'll be in for at least a week, so I'll have to expect my recovery at home to be far more protracted, and full of more ups and downs.

I don't have a date set for that surgery yet. I see my surgeon one week today, on March 5, so it will be early March sometime. For now, I'll just heat up the magic bag again.

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