Surgery Update

I'm healing well, although the neck brace is still my constant companion. My neurosurgeon has authorized me to wear a "soft" collar at night. New plugs between repaired vertebrae "look good" and new bone is beginning to grow around them. On March 11th, 19 (!) days from now, my driving privileges should be reinstated.

My energy level is low, although I'm thinking that's more due to Fibromyalgia than surgery. Naps are necessary if I'm to have a clear head all day. The searing, burning, pain that begins at the middle of my back and radiates down my flank and over both hips is back. I did so hope that would remain gone...

I'm learning that nap time is when Fibro Fog kicks in. Whether that's at 9:00 in the morning or 3:00 in the afternoon, accepting it is a much better response than fighting it.

Only one major happening while I've been re-learning to use my hands and fingers; evidently I've been "over-compensating" by sending manual overrides to my hand's poorly-functioning auto-response system long enough that it became habit. I'm re-training to consciously shut that off because squeezing a paper cup of hot coffee too hard causes the lid to pop off and bathe my lap in it. Very uncomfortable. Not a happening I wish to repeat.

I am still opting to limit the use of sharp knives in the kitchen. This is fear related. It will take time to become comfortable with them again.

Typing is still difficult. That finger "auto-response" we who have typed at 75+ wpm since our teen years and take for granted is something I miss greatly. My fingers move all right, just not to the right keys. I spend much time deleting extra fumble-fingered letters. Worse is finding and fixing the missed letters. However, my editing skills have improved because of this, so maybe that's not a bad thing after all.

Our home is finally clean again. Scrubbed clean. It takes tackling one room at a time and being happy with that rather than pissing and moaning that another room is badly in need of vacuuming and dusting, or mopping and waxing. Vacuuming has to be good enough because steam cleaning the carpets is out of the question. One room takes most of a day, even if it wasn't so bad to begin with.

My life is good, for the most part. I'm fortunate to have a wonderful husband who will pitch in even after working a 12-hour day to help me, just because he knows it bugs me to be surrounded by chaos. He even picks up after himself. He's a keeper. Good thing, too, because I'm too tired to train another one.

Now, if only I could train son's walrus-sized attention-whore dog to lay around somewhere other than the only opening out of my office - and to clean up after herself...