I stopped using the Oxy two days ago. I was only using half of the 5mg tablet, twice daily. It was easy enough to stop. I'm also no longer using the muscle relaxer at night. The reason being I was tried of feeling like I was down 20 points on my I.Q. during the day. Getting off the Oxy and the muscle relaxer makes me feel so much more alert. The downside - it hurts some. To be fair, it hurt before too...just duller. Pain is pain...and it's annoying.
The biggest downside to the pain is that it robs me of concentration, making it harder to pray and nearly impossible to read anything at length. I can read emails, articles, etc. I can't read a book. TV is my friend - I'm enjoying catching up on a few shows. It's relaxing and doesn't require concentration. For prayer, relying on the formula prayers is helpful...but not my preferred method of prayer. But it works! Turning the pain into a prayer (trick I learned from a friend years ago - thank you Doris in Heaven) is also helpful.
The pain seems concentrated to two areas - the incision on my back and the rib that raps around to the front from the incision area. Lidocaine patches help some. Ice helps some. Pain worsens as the day wears on...so evenings are difficult. The pain also affects my appetite (takes it away), so I have to remind myself to eat. I'm rarely hungry, thanks to the pain. Eating protein is essential for healing.
Healing is slow...day by day. Then I remind myself "hey, surgery was literally two weeks and two days ago - cut yourself a break." Sigh. I'm not a patient patient. ;-) The search for a new PCP is helping pass some time. I have calls to make, etc. My follow up with Mayo is set for July 24 via Zoom. I have to do a chest X-Ray a week prior - I have an order for that from Mayo since I won't use my soon-to-be-fired PCP. I hope to have a new PCP by the time I meet with Mayo - that's my goal.
I'm able to walk my smaller dog. She doesn't pull and she's small. The bigger guy is a different story...I can't handle him yet - it will be a while before I can try that. Weeks for sure.
I'm humbled by the prayers, cards, support, food, deliveries and such that have been part of my journey. Love to all of you! I'm grateful to Mayo for their holistic approach. My biopsy results are actually final and shows a high risk spindle type tumor for the solitary fibrous tumor of the pleura with good margins (yay). The nodules on my diaphragm were an inflammatory response to having the stupid tumor sitting on top of it - but it hadn't invaded (yay). The dumb tumor was necrotic (dying) in parts - so I'm just so happy it was evicted! My breathing capacity is back to where it was before surgery, so that's good. Now I need to build up a bit more capacity since I got some volume back with the tumor being evicted. That will take time. I wish I could swim...I'm sure it would help...but no submerging of the wound for 6 weeks...so that means four more weeks at least.
I'm doing some work to keep my mind sharp, but just a little. Most of the day is dedicated to healing. I'll update the blog again when there's something to write about. :-)
P.S. I sneezed a couple of times and it didn't hurt like that other time. It hurt, but manageable...so things are definitely improving.
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