Surgery and Recovery

Boy it's been a long time since I have posted here. Time does fly when you are having fun (and not feeling sick or in pain). I pretty much spent the last month or so enjoying being with my kids, homeschooling, going to the beach, relaxing by the pool, swimming with my kids, going to birthday parties, and overall just enjoying being mostly pain free.

Other than the occasional Fibromyalgia flare up, the only pain I had was the nagging pain caused by my ovarian cysts. Over the last few months we have been closely monitoring them by ultrasound and I have been taking supplements to help shrink them. The largest one at almost 7cm ruptured and healed only to be replaced by another 6cm one a month later. That one was on my right ovary along with a smaller 2 cm one. On my left ovary there was a small 1 cm one. Two weeks ago I saw my OB and we decided it was best to remove my right ovary because the 6cm cyst was actually INSIDE my fallopian tube, or at least was left of it from my previous removal of my uterus in 2010. And it was started to cause me real uncomfortable pain and pressure. Laparascopic surgery was scheduled for Monday June 20th. While I was waiting to go into the OR, my OB and I decided at the very last minute to go ahead and also remove the left ovary. We both figured that because I already had a small cyst on the left side, I had a pretty high chance of having another surgery in a year or so to remove that one anyways, so best to get it all removed at the same time to avoid the risk of another surgery. So now all of my reproductive organs are gone. I have 4 new 1 inch sized incisions across my belly to add to the hip to hip scar and the three other 1 inch sized scars from my previous surgeries. And I get to wear a small 2 inch clear hormonal patch until I actually go into menopause. This was the first time (remember I have had 7 major abdominal surgeries before this) that I wasn't scared going into the surgery. I actually felt peaceful about it. I just kept meditating on the Doxology "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below, praise Him above ye Heavenly host, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost". As soon I started repeating these words from God, I truly felt a warm peace enter my heart and then the rest of my body. But I am still human so I did have some worries: 1) the care of my children and husband during my recovery 2) how my body would adjust to not having my ovaries to trigger hormone production and getting used to bio identical hormones and 3) having to take opiates for pain control after surgery and if I would go through withdrawals again when I stopped taking them. I knew I would have to take Hydromorphone through a pump into my IV while I stayed in the hospital. I also knew that I would be prescribed Percocet, my arch nemesis from my previous withdrawals, for at home pain control. I totally thought that because I was having a laparascopic surgery, I would have some pain for a couple of days and then be over it. That was how it was during my previous laparascopic surgeries. This one through me for a loop! Hardly any pain immediately after surgery. Day 2 I had to push the button for my IV pain meds about 8 times. Day 3 I was at home and ended up taking 5 Percocet to keep the pain at bay. Today was Day 4 and I finally feel like my post surgery pain is 95% gone. But like all my post surgery recoveries, as soon as my physical pain is gone the Fibromyalgia pain comes full force. So I took 1 Percocet this morning for post surgery pain, and then 2 percocet the rest of the day for Fibromyalgia pain. My plan for tomorrow is to not take any Percocet and just deal with whatever Fibro pain comes my way. I CANNOT get hooked on Percocet again! I will increase my natural pain supplements, try to walk a few minutes on the treadmill, sit out in the warm sun, and cry my eyes out if I have to...but I don't want to take anymore Percocet. So keep me in your prayers the next few days.

Can't believe it's been a month since my last post!

This month has been a busy one! DD's 4th birthday party, an out of town wedding, homeschooling, decluttering, field trips, and enjoying being mostly pain free. Then the cold, wet mornings hit this week and my Fibro pain is back. YUCK! Today I REALLY wished I had some narcotics to deal with the pain. But since I don't have any....I kept busy to keep my mind off the pain and took lots of my herbal anti inflammatory supplements and advil. I homeschooled my 6 yo son this morning, took both kids to storytime at Starbucks, then we hit a new indoor playplace for a couple hours. Then came home and cleaned up my room in preparation for the new cleaning lady coming on Wednesday. I need to declutter and put stuff away so she can get into each room to clean :(. Pain level was a constant 7/8 all day...DOUBLE YUCK! Today I decided to keep my son home from the charter school because I was in just too much pain and tired to drag my rear out of bed to get him to school at 8am and both kids were completely sacked out until almost 9am anyways. Tomorrow we have a 9am allergy retest appointment for my 4 yo DD and a firestation tour at 2pm for my son and his class. Somewhere I need to squeeze in picking up the kids rooms and decluttering the diningroom area...again so the cleaning lady can get in there to do some deep cleaning. To help me with keeping up with the house (dusting and deep cleaning) we are trying out a cleaning lady once a month. I can keep on top of the decluttering and putting stuff away and vacuuming (mostly), but dusting and wiping everything down leaves me sick with bad allergies for days afterwards...so the hubby said to hire someone...yay! Love my husband! So hopefully my house will be cleaner and less dusty from here on out.

Things I am looking forward to this week:
1- Firestation and Police Station tours...love all the hands on learning through homeschooling :). They are studying Community Helpers in history.
2- 3 days weekend for the hubby for Memorial Day Weekend....hopefully the weather will be nice so we can go to the beach!
3- having fun out in the pool with my kiddos.
4- having a clean house :).

No pain yesterday!

Woohoo! I had no noticeable pain yesterday! That's the first time in over a year! Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo! I have been pretty much sticking to my strict diet. No onions, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, dairy, wheat, gluten, or bell peppers. Eating either veggies or fruit with each meal, drinking my greens shakes, taking my supplements, and exercising. For my cheats I have a handful of potato chips, half a can of Coke, a Icee Coke (my favorite!), or some gluten free cookies. I try to keep it limited to one cheat a day. I have been making lots of stirfrys, Gluten Free rice pasta salads with lots of diced up veggies in it, homemade chicken soup, and the other night I baked a huge turkey! I froze most of it in individual Ziploc bags for quick easy meals. I also made my first giblet soup. I put in a couple bags of frozen veggies, some celery, and some sea salt and boiled it all together with the giblets. It was yummy! But I couldn't get myself to actually eat the giblets...they looked like huge gonads! But the soup part was yummy over some brown rice :).

Happy Birthday to my Baby Girl!

Today my Baby Girl turns 4! I am so blessed to have been chosen by God to be her Mommy! As per our family tradition, I woke her up this morning singing "Happy Birthday" to her. She yawned and gave me a BIG smile and said "Yay! It's my birfffday!" We gave her our presents this morning. A HUGE Fisher Price Dollhouse complete with tons of little dolls, furniture, and accessories. Thank you Craigslist for saving me a bundle on this. I think I spent about $100 on all her gifts. I think the dollhouse itself would have been over $100 if I bought it brand new. I wasn't sure that she would really like it, but she has been playing with it all morning :). It's such a wonderful sound to hear her pretend play :). I love little girls giggly voices! Tonight she gets a little birthday cake and gets to open her package from my in-laws. Then in 2 weeks a party with all her friends at Pump It Up. Healthwise I have been feeling better everyday. Today is my first official day "Back to Normal" schedule. I dropped my son off at his charter school at 8am, came home and ran some laundry, walked/jogged on the treadmill for 30 minutes, played dollhouse with my daughter, ate breakfast, took my supplements, checked my emails, and am now blogging while I wait for the pool repair guy to fix our pool pump. In the last two weeks we have replaced our over the range microwave ($500), spent $350 for my Integrative Specialist appointments and all my supplements, and now the pool pump motor went out so out goes another $500. Thank goodness we got our tax refund last week! I can't complain though since we havent had to replace anything since we moved into this house 5 years ago. Both the pool pump and the microwave were 10 years old. I am still taking supplements to elevate my mood for minor depression (hello, with all I have gone through no wonder I get emotional), liver detox, greens drink (gotta get my fiber), Ceralin Forte to improve my mental brain neuron connectivity (I think we all need a little help in this area..lol!), Anti inflammatory, and now I have added back in Orthobiotic (a really good probiotic) and Omega 3 fish oil capsules. I swear I take a lot of capsules everyday! Let me count: 15 in the morning, 6 at lunch, 11 after dinner. BUT they help my body to heal and feel better so I guess I will have to suck it up (or rather suck them down) like a big girl. And it's not like I have to take them forever, just until my body can regulate and manage itself in a healthy manner. I also had an ultrasound done last week for my ovarian cyst. The one on the right side went from 6.8 cm down to 3.8 cm. But they found another one on my left side that is 2 cm in diameter. SO I will have another ultrasound done in 5 weeks to monitor them. In a couple of days I will also start taking an Iodine supplement to help heal the ovarian cysts. Things I am happy about today:
1) The Lakers won last night so are 3-1 in the first round of the playoff series against New Orleans. Yes we are Laker fans in this home!
2) It's my cute little girls 4th birthday today!
3) Taking my little girl to the GNI (Gluten Not Included) Bakery in Escondido for a birthday treat for lunch..yay!
4) Looking forward to taking my daughter to her friends M & T's birthday party at Build A Bear on Saturday.
5) I actually jogged a whole quarter of a lap on the treadmill today during my 30 minute workout. That's the farthest I have jogged in about 2 years! I have been walking between 1 and 2 miles about 5 days a week the last 2 weeks.
6) The sun is finally out! We had 2 weeks of overcast or rain all day. I am loving the sun and the warmth!

Have a good week everyone!

Day 17

Over the last week I have slowly been getting back to normal life. Which feels great! Tiresome, but great! I am about 90% back to normal. I have gotten on the treadmill to walk 4 of the last 7 days for at least 20 mins. Today I did 40 mins! It helped that I had a good book to read, James Patterson's "W". Finished reading that in less than a week. Then had to download "The Gift" onto my Nook so I can read what happens next in the series. The Nook is a great reading tool to have while on the treadmill. Instead of turning pages, I just press the screen to get to the next page. LOVE IT!

I am still having those weird brain tingly sensations throughout the day which still freak me out. But I haven't had a huge emotional outbreak in a few days so that's good. I have pretty good energy throughout the day, but still get tired around 5pm.

My fibromyalgia pain decided in the middle of last night to return :(. Not sure why...maybe the chicken broth I used in my soup? Maybe the return of cold, damp weather? I also got hit pretty bad with pain while we were at the beach on Sunday. It was sunny but windy and cold. We left after only an hour.

I am hoping this pain goes away soon. Today I am just pissed off at it and mentally ready to fight it. I was crying in bed this morning when WH left to drop of DD at preschool because of the pain. Then I just got plain pissed off at it. I was NOT going to let it ruin and take control over my whole day. I had things to do..mainly homeschool my son. So out of bed I went and put on my workout clothes. 40 minutes of walking and sweating on the treadmill. Take that Fibro pain! Now go the hell away! Unfortunately it's still lingering, but only a level 3 which is much better than the level 7 it was all night long!

Now off to Sports Authority to reward myself by buying a new Exercise Ball and some new workout clothes. Yay! I fit back into my size Medium workout clothes. Haven't even worn them in about 2 years. Between the 28 day cleanse I did in January and my opiate detox/getting back onto my mostly veggie diet, I have lost almost 10 lbs! Woohoo!

In the last week I have also gotten 2 1 1/2 hr massages and been to my chiropractor twice. Massage is really good for helping your body to release toxins and other yucky stuff that creates inflammation in your body. If you can afford it, you should definitely get a good massage once every other month. And the chiropractor helps by keeping your spine in alignment, which keeps your muscles and organs aligned in the right place thus helping them to work more efficiently. It also helps to relieve tension and stress in key areas like the neck and shoulders and lower back. And we all know tension and stress directly affects our Fibromyalgia pain. Thankfully WH's job offers insurance for chiropractic and acupunture care.

Things I am looking forward to doing this week:
1- finishing "The Gift" and reading what happens
2- taking my DD shopping for goody bag items for her upcoming birthday party
3- going grocery shopping with my best friend (we do our weekly grocery shopping together...mommy time + grocery shopping= fun times). Haven't felt up to grocery shopping in almost a month.
4- Easter celebrations at church on Saturday and get together with friends on Sunday for our annual Easter picnic.

What fun and positive things are you looking forward to doing this week? Let's keep focusing on the positive things to help get us through the pain. Would love to hear how my blogger friends are doing.

Sandra

What Works for Me

Here is what works to help keep my Fibro in check. I am allergic to the following: chocolate, dairy, casein, wheat, wheat gluten, eggs, tree nuts, shellfish, salmon, citrus fruit, and peanuts. Additional foods that I avoid: onions, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers. These along with wheat, dairy, and soy are natural inflammatories in the body and they trigger my Fibro pain. Google Anti Inflammatory Diet or Inflammatory Foods to get more information on it. I did the Elimination/Reintroduction process with all the Nightshade family of veggies to find out which ones triggered my pain. I see my Integrative Health Specialist every 2-3 months as needed. Integrative Specialists are trained MD's who are trained in Holistic Medicine. I see Dr. Roya Kohani in La Jolla, CA. She was trained by Dr. Andrew Weil. I see my Chiropractor about once a month to keep my spine aligned which reduces general body pain. She also practices Holistic Medicine. Her name is Dr. Jill Paisely in Poway, CA. I have been seeing her for almost 4 years now. She was the one who recommended Dr. Kohani to me. I take a bunch of supplements, herbs, and natural shakes prescribed to me by Dr.Kohani. When I stick to my diet religiously, my pain is minimal. When I derail from the diet, all pain he** breaks loose. Given all that I have been through in the last month, I have rededicated myself to eating the right way and sticking to my strict diet. It's a pain, it sucks, but I have to keep at it for my health. I have been mostly Fibro pain free for 9 days now.

Driving again...finally!

So it's been over 2 weeks since I drove with either of my kids in the van. I just didn't feel safe driving them around given my condition. In fact, in the last 2 weeks I have driven only twice. Both times just 3 blocks up the street to my chiropractors office. I felt strong enough to drive my 6yo son to my optometrist to pick up my new glasses and to stop at Target on the way home. Woohoo! Focused on something fun and positive..getting goody bag treats for my daughters upcoming 4th birthday party. And my son even cooperated (popcorn and an icee helped with this...lol!). An hour and a half later we are home and I am pooped, but at least I did it. I drove and got us home safely and got out of the house. Each day I am getting stronger and healthier. I still feel a bit disoriented and like have a fog covering my brain and still get the brain tingles every so often, but it is getting better. Emotionally I am feeling healthier too. Yesterday I did great until I crashed around 3pm emotionally. But after crying for an hour I was able to put on my Big Girl Panties and get up and focus on folding laundry while deep breathing. I figured if I was going to cry and be emotional, I may as well get some laundry done. So this morning I washed a few more loads of laundry in preparation for my late afternoon melt down :). More good news! I just ordered my daughters birthday cake. Since we both have several good allergies (hers being wheat and nuts), it is very difficult to find something simple like a birthday cake. It makes me sad when we go to her friends birthday parties and she is always left out when it comes to birthday cakes and cupcakes. So it is well worth the $70 for an allergy friendly 6 inch birthday cake that she can eat on her birthday that actually tastes yummy. It is $54 for the cake itself and $15 for delivery. The bakery is in Los Angeles and we live near San Diego, so having it delivered is totally worth it for us. If you are interested..check out Baby Cakes in either NYC or Los Angeles at www.babycakesnyc.com. They also have two cookbooks where they share some of their yummy recipes. They make by far THE best gluten free and allergy friendly birthday cake and FROSTING that my family has ever tasted! Now only if they would open up a location in San Diego :). We are getting a Vanilla/Lemon cake with yellow frosting..can't wait to try it! Off to walk on the treadmill and read my new James Patterson book.