Waking up

I woke up on Friday. I think I literally had been sleeping almost 20 hours a day. I figure it was the fab combo of my system starting to kick the anesthesia out, withdrawal from some hard ass drugs, and just needing to sleep through some of the healing. So I'm down to about 10mg/day of Dilaudid & on Kadian...which doesn't seem too bad. Amazing how long the pain lasts though. I quit the clonidine which they give you to help with the withdrawal. I think that helped some. I'm taking as little flexeril as possible now too...usually about 1 a day. I don't really have much to say as after a couple of truly crappy weeks I am just starting to be up and around. Things are going well at this point I think. I'm making slow progress on the physical front, but it is progress and the docs said to plan for a year of recovery, so...I think I'm on schedule. It is really nice to feel half way human.

Oh, I do have something. I'm driving. I asked quite a few people who had more or less the same surgery how they felt about driving after surgery. Almost everyone said eek eek bad no good almost never not like-y, etc. I have to say that I am having a fine time driving. I have to turn at the shoulders or waist to see the right side mirror, but the rear view and left side are fine just using my eyes (switching from glasses to contacts was key though). I'm of course wearing a cervical collar. I had someone with me the first several times I drove to be a spotter of sorts...basically to call me out if I wasn't seeing things or was about to do something horrible. Nothin'. So there you go. If any of you are about to get yourself wrapped up in this sort of surgery, here's one vote for driving being ok afterward. My suspicion is that it depends on your comfort with driving pre-surgery. I LOVE to drive. I HATE to be a passenger. Surgery has taught me some tolerance for being a passenger, but hasn't dampened my love for driving. I'm driving myself to physical therapy and to doctors appointments. I'm running a couple of errands here and there. It kicks my ass and I have to come home and nap, but...progress none the less.

Speaking of progress. I actually went out to visit some friends the other night. Another thing that kicked my ass, but we parked about half a block from our friend's house...I walked in (did I mention that I walked in!) I can make it about half a block and that's pretty much it...we hung out for a couple of hours and then I felt like a big ole 2 year old. I was just done. Needed to go home right then. Ah well. More napping for me.