Hospital Follow-up

I wrote about the first part of being in the hospital. 

My surgery was a little late. Transport was late getting me so then the surgeon came and got me himself. He was super annoyed. It was a long day for him.  It started near 9:30 PM. Or later than that. They had me get ready and I was waiting in the transport bed for awhile.  I think it started late. The surgeon was so annoyed with how late it was and how long it took.  I think he called it an exploratory laparoscopic surgery. 

I woke up in recovery after 11 pm. I was very groggy. I remember noting how empty it was. It was just me and 2 nurses. Apparently they were on-call nurses called in special for me. 

I really need to look up the exact problem more but it was something with how when the gallbladder was removed it pulled part of the liver.  He had to cauterize the edge of the liver.

Every morning they tested my blood work again. My liver enzymes kept going down but nowhere near normal. 

Thursday I was on nothing by mouth for my MRI. It was my hardest MRI and then the pain was the worst after it. I had to hold my breath for periods of time through the entire MRI. It was like hold it for 21 seconds, 25 seconds, 28 seconds, etc. I have a rough time holding my breath for that long normally and then with all the pain and unable to take deep breathes it was rough. The room was spinning during the MRI.  

The doctor said there was no bile so it is good.  

He didn't really care how much my incision is draining but what it has.  The drain leaked a ton. I had many layers of gauze and my gown would still get all wet and be annoying. I remember asking the nurses to change it but they just seemed to keep on their schedule of when they'd change it no matter what. 

I was still in so much pain on Wednesday. They even wanted to stop giving me the good medicine that worked because at home I wouldn't be able to take an IV medicine.   They started to give me 2 pills of Norco instead of 1 which helped a bunch. But it was still nothing compared to Dilaudid.  

Each day I was so much better than the previous day but I was still far from normal.  

They seemed to want to send me home Wednesday and I said that was a bad idea.  Then they kept me and wanted to keep me another day just in case. 

My finger got infected while I was at the hospital. When I left the hospital they gave me antibiotics only because of my finger. 

I could take Norco every 4 hours. I would take a walk about an hour after I took the medicine. I definitely didn't take any within an hour of medicine being due since I was in so much more pain then.  

I left the hospital Friday at 11 am. 

I napped a lot. I barely walked. Short walks around the kitchen or eating made me lightheaded. My sciatica started giving me issues and every time I stand up and sometimes when I'm lying down my leg would go numb. 

Thursday June 24, I had my post-op appointment and had my drain removed.  The pain got a lot better once the drain was removed. 

The pictures aren't the best. All my pictures were slightly blurry when I tried to take them of the incision/drain. 

2021 Exercise Goals Progress (June)

Here's my goals so far. It seems I'm totally blowing some out of the water that my June set back from surgery will be OK.

For 2021, here are my exercise goals and how I'm doing:

1. Run 100 miles (with a reach goal of 200 miles)
• January = 24.49 mi  (8.33-16.66/ mo goal)
• February = 21.51 {46}
• March = 22.58
• April =  29.6
• May = 33.26
• June = 17.53 {148.97}
2. Run 52 times (With a reach goal of 100 times)
• January = 19 runs (4.3 - 8.33 x a month goal) 
• February - 15 {34}
• March = 13
• April = 18
• May = 16
• June = 9 {90}
3. Complete 3 Beachbody programs
• Muscle Burns Fat (January)
• Muscle Burns Fat (February)
• Muscle Burns Fat Advanced
• (I did the running workouts for 30 Day Breakaway and half the weights.)
• I made it through 3/5 of the PREP before Surgery
4. Exercise in some form 156 times (that's 3x/week) (Reach goal of 312)
• January = 50  (13 - 26 x month goal)  
• February = 45 {95}
• March = 48
• April = 39
• May = 34
• June = 16 {232}
5. Win 20 step bets
• January = 2  (1-2 x month goal)  
• February = 3 {5}
• March = 1
• April = 2
• May = 3
• June = 1 {12}

Sweet Miles (1.30.21)

Miles got a kid video camera that also takes photos. He took some photos of me because he knows I love pictures. I think there were many many awful ones but he got a few good ones. 

I like the one with Liam's foot blocking half the screen too. 

Miles did a good job!

2021 Week 4/52 photo

 
Just look at Liam looking at Ella here. Ella was eating ice cream and decided to share with Liam. He was so excited about it. Ella also gave him a GIANT spoon when sharing with him. 

Photo taken January 25, 2021.

2021 Week 3/52 photo

I ordered a swing set. Dave didn't think we needed to. Miles helped me carry it to the backyard. Miles helped me put it together. Dave came out to help for the very end of assembly. (Later I anchored it after seeing what it did with the kids on it going the same direction.) Everyone loves the swing set. 

The kids loved this swing set. We used it so much. It was great.  It still is great.

 Photo Taken January 18.

After this I had moved the baby swing to the middle. 

Faces (1.14.21)

 
Miles made many different faces and then had me take his picture. 

I love when Miles is requesting photos to be taken. 

2021 Week 2/52 photo

 

I got a new desk. Liam climbed inside and made himself at home. He was too cute. I had to take his picture.  He only got to climb in since the drawers were carried upstairs separately. 

Photo taken January 16, 2021

Hospital (6.12.21)

Saturday night I was in severe pain. It just kept getting worse so I went to the ER near 10 PM.  They did some tests and said I had gall stones and needed to have my gallbladder removed.  I was given Morphine and it didn't help at all. Then I was given Dilaudid that was wonderful and helped. But then it also made me wide awake. Since I was without pain (after getting medicine) they said I could go home and schedule the surgery. 
The ER staff all seemed to recommend just getting it over with.   The medicine hadn't even worn off so I figured I might as well get it over with. 

Surgery was at 3 PM. I had a laparoscopic Cholecystectomy.

I was out at 3:57 and into recovery.  Then I was in recovery for a little over an hour. 

The doctor said I would go home Sunday night during my surgery. He didn't actually see me after. The nurses said I had to be able to walk around, get up without getting lightheaded, go to the bathroom, and I forget the 4th thing now. 

I got home around 8PM and proceeded to overdo it. My incisions bled. I stained my shirt.  I didn't even change out of that bloody shirt for 2 days. 

Monday morning I helped Dave pack school lunches. Then I had to rest.   The Norco didn't seem to work but I kept trying to tough it out. 
Monday night I could not fall asleep. I was up past 1. The pain just was too hard to sleep through.  I slept about 4 hours. Shortly after Liam woke up. Things didn't go well with that. I ended up trying to change his dirty diaper. He didn't want me to and that was so difficult that I ended up getting all clammy. I thought I was going to pass out. I saw myself in the mirror and I was as white as a ghost. 

I had to wait for the doctors office to open. I said the medicine didn't work but they just gave me a little stronger version.  That took until 10:20 just because it was hard to get in touch with him. It was the same medicine. I knew it wouldn't help. it didn't. 

They wanted me to get blood work as soon as possible. After about a half hour of just trying to get out of bed, I called back saying I did not think I could get there.  At first the nurse assumed it was because nobody was home to take me. I said no i just don't think i can walk all the way to the car. 

She said the doctor wanted to see me but he was leaving to go to the hospital so either I had to get there in 10 minutes or go at 1 PM. 

I got blood work done first. It was put with a rush so they took me in front of the other 20 or so people who were waiting. Then I had about 40 minutes to wait for the doctor.  He didn't think anything was wrong and maybe just tough it out. But he wanted to get all the blood work back.

The first results were all good. About 10 min after leaving the doctor's office more results were posted and he called Dave immediately telling me to go to the hospital.  Then he corrected himself to wait to hear back so then I wouldn't have to go to the ER and could check in at registration.  He was guessing that maybe I had gall stones in my main vile duct.

We got to the hospital but Ella wasn't allowed in so then I just had to wait for people to push me in my wheel chair.  I got Ella's friend to come get her then Dave got to come up with me.  

At the hospital, I got a CT. It was supposed to be a rush order but it took until 5 pm.   Apparently I have a lot of fluid in my abdomen and need a surgery tonight. Then tomorrow I'll have a different procedure done.

I feel like I could be a lot more detailed. I didn't even consult texts to people to remind myself of times but this is good enough for now.  My surgery is at 9:30 PM.

Gymnastics (6.7.21)

I signed Ella and Miles up for gymanstics this summer. Ella and Miles both stopped going when COVID hit. Miles has never gone to this place.  Now they go at roughly the same time. Miles starts 15 minutes after Ella and that 15 minutes took an eternity for him. Then Ella is done 5 minutes before he is.  Now we have to watch from outside and it's very hard with the glare.  

I was able to take the photo of Miles through the exit door. I took the photo of Ella through the glass. She's further back on the trampoline. You can't even tell. She was so far away and I had to zoom and take it through glass. I tried to get rid of the glare but you can see the car!  Ella is in class with someone she knew from mom group years ago but they didn't even recognize each other. 

The kids will go weekly all summer. 

Garmin Training Plan 6.4.21

I decided to see what a Garmin training plan is like. I set it up inputting my half marathon. Then I changed it to have a goal time. 
Some things are cool. Some are not. I have run not on the plan. 

I did learn I can move a run. I ended up missing one but I ran anyway. It's a little tricky to see the pace while you run. The drills seem to really slow my pace. Also all the walking slows my overall pace. But I will try to do this some more and see how it goes. 

The first day was a Benchmark Run.  All these runs have various drills and long warmups and cooldowns which make my overall pace so much slower. 

It started June 4. I set it up June 3.  

Day 1 was 2 minute warmup, 5 min fast, and 2 min cooldown.  I ran a workout after this not part of the plan.  I did .52 in 5 minutes at 9:37 pace. Once I did this run, Garmin created a plan for me. 

I missed my long run. I rescheduled it then rescheduled it then just didn't get to it. With Ella home it's rough. I ran on Sunday but not the long run and I didn't realize I could move training plan workouts so I did 30 day breakaway (6/6) and also later that day ran to and from an open house. I did run to and from PT but that wasn't considered the plan either. (6/8)  On Sunday, I ran with Liam and still beat my distance the last time I ran this same workout. 

Sunday

To PT

From PT

Then I swapped the order of my next 2 runs. 

I did Magic Mile at night when I wasn't feeling that well. (6/10/21) You start with a bunch of drills then on the Magic Mile, I did that in 10:03.  This predicts a half with a 12:02 pace so 2:37:40 for the time for a half!

Then I did Goal pace repeats the next day. (6/11/21) I did 5 repeats based on my goal pace of 2:10 that I input. I accidentally did better than the suggested range 2 of 5 times and 2 times were within a second of the low end of the pace. The workout felt really hard because I was sore from The Prep Legs and then a run the day before. I didn't get to run until 11 AM. It was so hot. The overall run time was much longer than I hoped/guessed. All the drills and walk breaks sure make the time and distance longer than I'm used to with repeats like this.  I could see my first .25 split for each repeat but it didn't pop up with the second so I never knew for sure what I was doing.  While running it would tell me my pace or if I was in the range I should be in. But that doesn't work so well if you have walk intervals so I'm not sure.  I tended to have 2 walk intervals per half mile. Jeff Galloway is the Coach and he's all about run walk run so I don't know why most of the training runs don't even account for it. 

I was going to do week 1 but week 1 was partial and then week 2 merged into week 1 and I pushed my long run and I ran not on the plan too so I'll just post this now since I started writing it.  I also did 2 hikes, and 3 The Prep workouts in the 8 days covered here.