womzilla | Annoying recovery details

Probably more than you want to read.

As I've mentioned, over the last few days, the single worst thing has been my cold, because whenever I cough, it makes my incision hurt like,,, what was the technical term again? ah, yes, "bejeezus".

Well, I've reached a turning point of sorts, in that when I woke up at 8 AM today after fitful sleep (including a long, repetitive, narrative segment about an anti-smoking student group at Duke University blackmailing professors to endorse their efforts; less interesting than it sounds, alas), I spent at least ten minutes clearing phlegm out of my breathing passages and the phlegm was more annoying than the pain of the coughing. In fact, the pain of the coughing was only slighly worse than in any long, deep coughing fit.

But man, that was a lot of phlegm. And my breathing passages were completely dehydrated, a sign that I slept with my mouth open all night because my nose was blocked. Thank goodness

nellorat sleeps with earplugs and

supergee is deef; I'm sure my snoring was at "lawnmower" levels.

I changed the dressing on the operation site. Once I realized the thick brown stains on the old dressing were formed by betadine (the antibiotic) rather than blood, I was pleased with how it looked. The site is so swollen that I have no navel, but I'm sure it will return--it was like that last time, too.

So, overall I have to consider that progress. I'm almost certainly done with the painkillers entirely, there's no sign of infection at the operation site, the fever's gone, I got out of bed without agony... I think I'll recover.