4 weeks!

Today marks 4 weeks from my surgery. I'm definitely not 100% but I'm feeling so much better. I'd say I'm about 70% at this point. Sometimes I feel worse, but I've definitely passed that threshold of awful into consistently tolerable. I'm starting to be able to focus (I'm reading and watching new tv shows/movies...Sabrina right now...that Humphrey Bogart is so dreamy!), and I can get almost comfortable. I'm still tired a lot, but I think that has to do with not being able to sleep that great. It's crazy how the human body heals itself. To think just a month ago I had a major organ removed from my body and today I'm sitting here virtually pain free...it's just so cool. Now I'm looking forward looking down and not seeing a swollen stomach, and being able to wear jeans. I'm also really hoping that I'm able to dance at my best friend's bachelorette party next weekend. We're going to an 80s club in New York City and I got a great dress for the occasion (it hides my stomach pooch too!). 

Incisions at 4 weeks: 

Some random observations looking back at my surgery/recovery:

-One of the weirdest things about it was that I was hot pretty much all of the time. Generally I'm a cold person (and I don't mean my personality, although some might beg to differ!), but I sweat so much, I'm guessing from one of the medications. I hated it!

-I usually don't mind just hanging out, watching tv or whatnot, but I really wanted time to pass quickly during recovery. Being uncomfortable nearly 100% of the time made everything weird.

-The physical feelings I felt were hard to describe...it was like nothing I've ever felt before or can imagine feeling again. It was definitely tolerable, but just overall strange. It's not often that you feel the pangs of nerve endings healing in your abdomen.

-Medicine is important. I'm one of those people that never goes to the doctors, I just keep moving and let it pass when I don't feel well or am in pain. But I learned through this that medicine helps you heal and oxycodones are delightful (except that they make it hard to poop...that's the living worst!).

-Everything passes. I knew that going in, which is why I was so okay with doing something so uncomfortable, but it just solidified that feeling. Pain (physical and emotional) is just temporary. Someday (soon!) this will all just be but a distant memory, but for the person that received my kidney it will hopefully be one that changed their life. I don't know for sure (I really hope to get some kind of information on that at my next appoint in a couple of weeks), but it helps to think that might be true.

That's all for now...I'm going to go enjoy being able to sit around and watch movies for the afternoon. :)