Today is the fifth day after my SCDS surgery, and I finally got to leave our hotel. My period of bed rest officially ended about 11:00 am this morning, though some other people who have this same surgery are told to stick to bed rest for three full weeks. So I took it very easy today.
Beth brought me some breakfast from the hotel’s breakfast bar, and then after a shave (my first one post-surgery) and shower I got dressed and we drove to a nearby park, the Bogue Falaya Park in Covington. The park wasn’t too busy and fronts the Bogue Falaya River, which is one of the three rivers that winds through the Covington area. We had a nice slow walk along the riverbank – not slow because I’m such an incurable romantic, but slow because my balance and footing are definitely not 100% right now. There were only a few others in the park, including a guy who was painting a historic building on the other side of the river.
For some reason, it seems that everything I see tilts slightly to the left. I noticed this first when we were walking down the hall of the hotel; the ceiling doesn’t seem level! So that’s one thing that needs to be retrained in my balance system. I’m still having about the same amount of pain in my ear – no more, no less. It feels like an ear ache from an ear infection that comes and goes. It’s not debilitating, but is pops back to the surface from time to time to remind me it’s there. I’m still taking Advil – three pills at a time – to try to keep that at bay, since I’d rather put up an ear ache than have the mildly loopy feeling that Tylenol 3 gives me.
Lastly, my ear is still slowly oozing blood. Every few hours, Beth removes the cotton ball that’s stuck in there so she can put some more antibiotic drops in and put a new cotton ball in. But the last one always has a little wet blood on it. I’m not sure when that’ll stop.
Our walk around the park probably only lasted an hour or so, maybe less, but it was enough to wear me out for the rest of the day. After that, we went to Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, a Louisiana-based regional fast food chain that makes really good chicken fingers (which since I’ve become a fan has expanded into Colorado). And then we went back to the hotel where I napped all afternoon. Beth originally planned for me to join her on a trip to Fontainebleau State Park, but I decided to stay behind and sleep and watch movies on my laptop instead. Healing is hard work!
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