Day 12

That's Day 12 post-op, as people in the hospital count it.

We went to the GP this afternoon [and yes, I had fish & chips for lunch :-) ].  My beta-blocker (to slow my heart rate) is being upped from 1/4 to 1/2 tablet twice a day.  I'll be seeing my GP again in a week's time.

Tomorrow morning (Wednesday) I will have some more blood tests to see how low my iron and B12 stores are.  I was told in hospital that they were 'low' but my GP has not received the results of the bloodwork done by the pathology lab in Victoria.  It's a fasting test so I have to go there first thing in the morning, then back home for breakfast before I can take my Aspirin for the day (must be taken immediately after food).  The Aspirin is to thin the blood; I'm on paracetamol for pain (although it's hard to tell how much I need because I don't really have pain but that could be because I've been on paracetamol since leaving the ICU).

Last night my jaw did a funny clicking crack thing unrelated to my surgery.  This was on the left hand side.  It's done similar things before and Ian said that he's had similar.  It's a bit like having one's jaw spontaneously dislocate without actually doing so - maybe one of the tendons shifts or something.

It happened during dinner and, for a while, I had to chew on the right side of my mouth.  It eased up during the evening but then it really ached this morning, which tended to give me a headache.  It certainly didn't help my migraine aura experience - now at 4 in 5 days.  Into the bargain, last night I dreamt that I had an aura; sigh, as if a real one waking me up isn't bad enough, now I have to dream them up?!

Apart from weird jaw movements and migraine auras, I have a groin wound with moving bruising.  The groin wound is from an incision just up from where one's leg meets one's torso; it is required to get blood to flow back into the body in the bypass procedure.  In and of itself it isn't too bad, however, one can get a lump of soft tissue bruising associated with it. The physiotherapist assured me that this is normal, as is the fact that the bruising can travel between layers of muscle to other areas.

Looking down on myself while standing, I look lop-sided with this lump on the right-hand-side just above the wound.  The tenderness has now started to move to the left (possibly because I can only sleep on the left, not the right side, at the moment) but the lump hasn't.

In terms of height, it's right around bench height which makes it difficult to use counters.  Ian has been fantastic at getting cups of water or tea and snacks in addition to regular meals for me.  I'm just a bit concerned with how I'm going to go next week (on Ian's return to work) if it hasn't reduced much.

On a plus note, the right side of my chest isn't as sensitive today. :-)

Laetitia :-)