A few weeks ago at our monthly ASFS meeting a friend asked, “So are you fully recovered now?”, in a tone suggesting he expected the answer to be yes.
But the answer’s no. And I won’t be for a while.
I’m doing well. Overall. Splendidly, considered the fabled alternative.
Since Thursday I went for a follow-up check with the chest surgeon, I thought it might be appropriate to give up a quick update on the State of the Me.
The surgeon said my X-rays looked “fantastic,” and seemed to feel I was making excellent progress. In a less-happy irony my chest has hurt like a mother since then.
And that’s to be expected. For a while, as they doctors reassured me. I had some major poking and prodding done, not least of which being the chest drains – plumbing fixtures, yes – stuck in my chest for a couple weeks. What I got was either the most invasive non-invasive surgery possible, or the least invasive invasive surgery possible.
Either way I’m quite appreciative for the technology (as well, of course, as the people wielding it!) that not only saved my life but did so in a way that did far less damage than would have been the case just a few years ago. But it’s still a major injury in itself. That takes time to heal from even if you’ve got a tungsten-carbide constitution like mine.
(If I didn’t, you’d be following this blog via Ouija board.)
I lost over seventy pounds. While it fluctuates a few pounds, and I haven’t lost any for a month or two, I’ve kept my weight down. I haven’t really been trying to lose; mostly to heal. The blood sugar remains well within range, thanks largely to la vida low-starch that I’ve followed religiously and without serious inconvenience since I got sprung.
My stamina’s still not great. I’m trying to get up to walking Emma Dog two miles a day every day for a week, then kicking the total up. Target: four miles a day. I’ve not yet gotten to doing the two every day, mostly because of the endurance thing. We are building slowly, and yes, surely.
The mental state is clear to partly cloudy. Serious anesthesia can take a while to recover from, and I got that too. My mental focus is still not what I at least hope it used to be; and my memory is spotty. While part of that might be accountable to the fact that, one month from yesterday, I turn 392 in dog years, I’ve noticed steady improvement from the surgery onward.
Overall, things go remarkably well. I am grateful. The writing is coming along. Rewriting, specifically, although there are other pots simmering as well. Some most promisingly.
It’s time to kick my life into high gear. I feel as if I was sent back for a purpose. More, I feel as if I tried my damnedest to die and wasn’t permitted to. I learn more everyday how to honor that fact and conduct myself accordingly.
My friends made it possible for me to survive. In a great number of astonishing ways. I remain humble and profoundly grateful. I will do all that I can to honor their astounding love and generosity and intensive real-world labor on my behalf, by doing what I was sent back to do: entertain the world with marvelous fictions. As part of doing my utmost to increase the sum of human happiness.
Despite the crotchets and quibbles, and the aches which I can, after all, endure, really, I’m doing great. Thank you for caring.
Thanks, everybody. I’ll make it worth your while.
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My mother still hasn’t recovered completely from the anesthesia from her gallbladder removal back in ’06. I guess, if she hasn’t by now, she never will.
Hey, in Martian years, you’ll still be under 30.