Tag Archives: recovery

I think I screwed too much today

What I've Been Up To, ,

Get your mind out of the gutter!

The deck silly!

Yesterday and today after work I screwed screws into the deck while Jeff has cut the grass.

I’m so broken now.  But this is the first real physical work I’ve done since surgery on June 4th. And don’t forget this is also my first 5 day work week since May (can emergency surgery equal the best summer ever??)

We can get the deck boards cut to length and put in place fairly quickly, but going back and screwing the screws in takes hours! We are putting two 3.5″ screws into the board every time it crosses a joist, which are a foot apart. So how many screws is that for each board?  ….I’d figure it out, but I’m way too tired.

It’s crazy to be sore from screwing, but it is the bending over that is the hard part, especially on my back and hamstrings. Thank goodness Jeff has a good cordless drill.  And two batteries that charge quickly.

We’re over half done the top now.  The goal is to have the surface of the deck in place, and all screwed down, and maybe the landing for the front door of the house, AND a set of stairs, before our company comes in September.

(fingers crossed)

I’m just really glad that I am able now to make a meaningful contribution to the deck. Every day I’m stronger.  Hard to believe that when I went back to work 3 weeks ago I struggled a bit just walking from the car to the building I work in.

 

Uh oh…. Our what is full?

House/Moving/Repairs, ,

Our neighbour D. is here with his mini-backhoe about to start finishing the back walkout drainage work.

However, Jeff just came in for the phone and said D. thinks our septic bed is full.

Our what?

I thought the last septic guy who was here said we only had a tank. Which we just had emptied. How can the bed be full? Is that why it tries to backup into our basement sink during rainy season? Am I going to need a third job to pay for this one?

Weekly Update

I got in my car for the first time in 6 weeks. And then I actually drove it! Jeff was away for work for a few days so I had to fend for myself. I took a brief trip into town to get a couple things.

Driving went okay, but I definitely should only do it after good sleep. I find I’m still foggy brained at times.  In fact I dialed the wrong phone number twice this week! Embarrassing…

Speaking of sleep, I don’t let myself sleep enough. I keep getting caught in the “OMG I have to go back to work soon” trap and “I don’t want to waste a second of this time” then I realize I’m home recuperating from a major surgery and I should be sleeping!!

I can weed some of the easy weeds in the garden for very short periods of time. This gets me moving a bit so I think I’m easing back into normal activity.

I still get a very sore abdomen at times. Usually when I’m tired. And at night. And if I’ve been coughing and/or sneezing. Good news Julie – my sneezer is back! Loud enough to hear ‘em across the lake, I’m sure.

Monty’s fence has been dismantled for a week too because of the backhoe work, so Monty has to go out on a leash each time.  That gives me more walking exercise too which is good.  Luckily he is getting older and didn’t try to rip my arm out of the socket much this week as we walked around and around the yard and house and upper driveway.

Update from the digging

We are realizing more with every new project in the ground here that we are on rock solid clay.

We rented a post hole auger a few years back when we were building the wood shed, but we didn’t get to finish the job. We got a few inches into the ground before the ground said no more and started to smoke – the ground – not the auger!

The only reason D. think our septic bed is full is because Jeff mentioned that it seems to back up into the basement sink during really rainy times – there are no symptoms from outside.  Whew!  D. thinks either our septic bed doesn’t drain because we are sitting on harder than rock clay – or maybe the outlet is blocked up. He seems to think the outlet is in the trees and he made a couple calls to confirm, including to M. the contractor next door who agreed with him. D. is going to try to find the outlet because the drain he’s putting in for the walkout is going to end up in a similar place. He said maybe it just needs a new gravel bed at the outlet.

And speaking of gravel, D. is saving Jeff’s back and he’s moving the gravel over by backhoe bucket from the pile that was delivered in the driveway rather than Jeff moving it by wagon or wheelbarrow. Whew!

Deck Construction

Deck construction resumes tomorrow.  Jeff got a couple more of those really thick and heavy duty L brackets made by an iron works guy so we’ll have 6 attaching the deck to the house, rather than just the 4 we had originally.

It will probably be a little frustrating that I can’t lift the lumber and help out.  Jeff has already decided that I can be in charge of painting the cut ends with that green pressure treated sealer.

Weather

It is still quite dry here and we have a ban on open fires. The weather has been gorgeous though. Warm, sunny, not too humid lately.  And at night it gets cool and really dewey.  We have to close up all the windows at night on the main floor because everything in here, especially paper, gets so damp.  I remember in the Sault I used to open my windows in spring and close them months later, but here we open and close the main floor ones every day.

4 weeks later…

What I've Been Up To, , ,

I left the house for the first time on Saturday. I tagged along with Jeff to town while he ran errands. It was hot and humid. I walked around the farmer’s market, but it was about all I could do. I had been relatively pain free – but walking that much was making something in my abdomen angry so I hung out in the truck and watched life go by for Jeff’s other stops. It doesn’t hurt too much to ride in a vehicle anymore, but I do bring a pillow to put between me and the seatbelt for extra padding.

Then we went out to Boyd’s Seafood Gallery and I had fish ‘n’ chips and Jeff had clams while we watched the lobster fisherman stack up their traps on the last day of their season. The fish was so extra thick and good. I wish that restaurant had a longer season!

On Saturday night I left the house again to go to the beach down the road with Jeff and Monty. I wore out fast and then hid from the blackflies in the truck, but Monty and Jeff had a swim and Monty was thoroughly worn out by the time we came home.

Now that it’s been 4 weeks since surgery, I realize just how disabled I was when I came home for the first couple of weeks! Now I can bend over and pick things up off the floor, I have to struggle to bend over to pick up the toilet seat or flush the toilet. I can prepare my own food without getting light headed. I can shower!!!!!

I still have some steri-strip tapes slowly unsticking themselves from holding me together. The bottom part of my incision was wider because it opened up when the staples came out and had leaked for a week or so when I came home, but even that part is healed and scab free now. Just real ugly. I read it can be a year or more before this bright purple scar is going to fade.

Jeff has 2 weeks vacation now. He has pulled out 2 shrubs from in front of the house far, and has pulled the front crooked steps and small deck off the front of the house has had dismantled it. That means we’re now committed to building a front deck :-)

I stayed up until midnight watching America’s Got Talent, and I managed to stay in bed until this morning! That is HUGE progress! I’ve been awake for almost every 4am hour for weeks.

Foggy morning today. 8:30 and we’re still fogged in. I can’t see the lake.

2 weeks into recovery….

What I've Been Up To, ,

It’s been 2 weeks since my surgery.

Sometimes I think I’m all fixed up so then I’ll have a great summer off of work, but then I try to do something and I quickly fail. I guess the Dr. gave me 2 months off work for a reason.

The chimney sweep is coming today to do the seasonal clean of our woodstove and chimney. I went downstairs last night with Jeff to clean up a bit. I was down there for 2 minutes before I was all weak, and lightheaded, and I didn’t even do anything!

I can tell my mind is still mushy because I am not as good at the FreeCell card game on my computer as I was before the surgery. I feel like I’m always tired, but I am too tired to nap.

My incision is healing. I think it has stopped leaking. I’m going to take the rest of the gauze off today and check for sure. Then I’ll just have the steri-strip tape left. (you should see all the tape residue all over me! I pick away at it and rub it off but it seems never ending!)

Every time I wake I have a big muscle spasm across my entire abdomen. Kinda like – you know how if you have a really extreme yawn and you tense muscles and shake a bit? Well my entire mid-section squeezes together for a moment. Is that my body healing up my muscles? It seems like it does it every time I wake.

I’m still not getting through the entire night in bed. By the evening I’m much more miserable, my stomach hurts more, and I feel like my incision is more swollen. So I dread lying flat in bed. Last night for the first time I was able to get on my side a bit. I thought I was just going to stretch a bit, but I feel asleep in about 20 seconds so I stayed on my side until 3am. It seems I head downstairs every day around 3-4am to resume my sleep in the recliner with my hoodie pulled over my eyes to block out the sun as it rises.

Hopefully I soon will get more comfortable in bed so I can wander up to bed during the day for a better nap.

I also hope my incision is all healed so I can get it wet and have a real shower one day soon. I made the mistake of using a hippy healthy deodorant after my last wash up and I smell like a sewer rat this morning. Pee Ewwww. I just washed up and was able to wash my own hair hanging over the tub for the first time.

Mom headed home on Saturday. She was a great help, and put up with my grumpiness well. She even did well with Zeus who hates company, and Sally let her pet her!

I was extra lucky that my brother came to visit for a night too! He was in Halifax for work so he extended his trip a night and drove up to visit. The two of us stayed up late and watched that ding-a-ling walk across Niagara Falls on the tightrope.

Jeff is working this week, so I am officially taking care of myself during the daytime. I can manage pretty well. Yesterday I sat at my computer for a few hours catching up on things, and was able to sit outside in the sun in a lawnchair for a bit. The only problem I have is reaching anything in the bottom half of the fridge, and picking anything up off the ground. My toes are getting well trained at picking things up for me :-)

Thanks everyone for your notes and cards and phone calls! You are all so kind!