First Day of Women's Physical Therapy

Today I had my first "Women's" physical therapy. Thank goodness the therapist was a woman. We got to know each other a little bit, she talked to me about the Cauda Equina. Of course, she has no idea what it is, so she'll do research. I let her know that I am still numb in the saddle area, and she said okay. I had also called on Tuesday to ask if I could still come in for the Women's health visit because I had begun my period. So, here I am menstruating, and meeting the new therapist. She asks me to take off my bottoms and lie on the table. Then proceeds to spend the next 45 minutes with her fingers either in my vagina, or in my rectum. She asks me if I can feel either, I tell her no. She asks if I can squeeze, I try. She says that she can feel me squeezing, but sometimes she says that when I'm not squeezing. I'll see her again next week.

I also had my second visit for PT on my left leg. We continue working on balance, and setting my left foot down with a normal pressure instead of slamming it down. A lot of this reminds me of when I had a personal trainer at the gym. Its just basically someone forcing me to work out. It's funny though when I'm riding the exercise bike, because my left foot keeps slipping out. It doesn't matter how tight they have the strap, it just doesn't not want to stay on the foot grip.

After the therapy I am meeting with one of my new team members for brunch. We'll be starting school shortly, and I'll be teaching 3rd grade this year. I stop to use the restroom when we get to the restaurant, and as it turns out I've had a small bowel accident. Thankfully though, I've been carrying extra Depends and wipes with me. So I clean up and head out and have a nice lunch with Cindy.

Bah...

So today we were supposed to go see Trudy and the kids before they leave to go back to Michigan tomorrow. The plan was for Donna to call when everybody was up. Cody and I were going to head over for a bit, go grocery shopping and come home... hopefully before it got to hot out. I haven't heard from Donna and I call around noon (thinking everybody has got to be up by now). They are, and they are headed to the mall. They're gone for three hours, long enough for us to shop and put groceries away, and for me to develop a headache and have a bowel accident. Just lovely.

Baby Shower!!

Today I went to Jason and Carrie's for Jen's baby shower! It was so nice to see Jen. Last night I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it, because I had one of those stupid migraines that made me nauseous again. Luckily, I woke up and it was gone. I had planned to only stay for a little bit, but I was having fun. So I ended up staying for several hours. There was a point where one of the girls made me laugh, and I had a small accident, but I dealt with it. I hadn't really thought about what I would do with my soiled Depends after... luckily I had a baggie with my bathroom wipes, and I put the soiled diaper in that and was able to throw it away. This is a good idea, I think I will start putting my back up Depends into a bag, so I can throw away the soiled one easier!

Anyway, the shower was great, and Carrie did a great job with the food as always. I'm glad that I suggested we watch the video for the read aloud of "Go the F*ck to Sleep," everyone thought it was really funny. I got to just stay and chit chat with Carrie and Jen for awhile after everyone else left also. Even with the accident, it was a good day!

Let the Rare Side Effects Begin...

The Lovenox injections are no fun. I've given myself 4 now and they all sucked!! I'm getting better, but still cannot "dart" the injection. I guess one bonus of being numb in the "saddle area" is that I can't always feel the injection until after I'm done when it starts burning from the alcohol wipe, although, it is creepy to watch the needle going in. Unfortunately, even though diarrhea isn't listed as a side effect until the very bottom of the list of possible side effects, I'm experiencing it. Normally that wouldn't be so bad, but when you can't control your sphincter muscle, diarrhea is even worse than normal!! I call my PCP's office and they tell me to stop the stool softener I was taking with the Percocet, and to try the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast). The items on the BRAT diet tend to constipate you (so does the Percocet) so hopefully that should help to offset the diarrhea side effect of the Lovenox. I just need to make it through the weekend until I can see my PCP on Monday morning. Thank goodness I upgraded our Netflix account to get DVDs and we have lots of Castle to watch so that I can keep my mind off of things!

Scholastic Sale

So anybody who knows me knows that I love to read and I love to buy books for my classroom! When I found out that I'd be teaching 3rd grade, I couldn't wait to get to the sale and get some new books for my classroom library. Since getting home from the hospital, I had been worried that I would not be able to do this sale (because it is lots of walking around in a big warehouse). Things had been going well, I have lots of farting going on that I can't control (because of the sphincter muscle thing), but haven't really had any accidents, so we decide to go. Since the surgery, every time I'd been out in public I've worn Depends, so I do that with this outing as well. We get to the sale, and I fart (it’s a bit stinky) Cody makes a face, and I let him know that I just made a stinky. We go through the sale and I look at tons of books, it takes about an hour and a half to get through it. I'm totally excited about my purchases and we head home. When I'm getting out of the car, Cody says there is a spot on the back of my shorts. When I get into the bathroom I see that I've had a bowel accident. This makes me sad; it had been a little while since I had one and I thought that streak was over. We relax and watch some t.v. then I start to get a headache around 4pm. I take a Percocet, drink a Starbucks DoubleShot and then take a nap. I'm out for quite a while, Cody makes me some soup for dinner and I take another Percocet because I still have the headache, put some ice on it, I end up throwing up and then I'm finally able to go to sleep. I haven't had migraines like this in forever! Good thing I did research and found a new PCP from all of the recommendations I got from my colleagues at school!

First Post Op Follow-up

The weekend was pretty uneventful, I had a visit from Cammy on Saturday because she was dropping off pictures from water day so I can add it to a cd full of pictures from the year.

Today I had my first post-op with the neurosurgeon. He is pleased that my bladder has pretty much come back, but a little disappointed that the bowels didn't come back with them. Usually the recovery of the bladder and bowels goes hand in hand, but not always. He lets me know that if we hit the 3 month mark and things still haven't come back that we will start to consider it a permanent thing. He checks out my incision and says that it is looking good. He also says that the numbness in my left leg is normal, and we're looking at the same time frame for the bladder and bowels. Cody asks how different my current situation could be if we'd gotten in sooner. The neurosurgeon thinks we got the surgery relatively early (he thinks the disc ruptured on Wednesday, so surgery on Friday was an early reaction). He also said that I need to start walking around more, trying to get back to normal. The only thing with this is that the numbness on the bottom of my left foot makes it a little uncomfortable and my feet are still pretty swollen. I tell him that my calves (even my right one) are numb and that I noticed it when I was shaving my legs the day before. He squeezes my leg and says that if there was a blood clot I would be jumping off the table in pain. He suggests that I just give it more time. I ask about paperwork that I need filled out for work. He says it will cost $25 and they can mail it out when it is done (The Tempe Doctor's Office was going to charge $25/page!). We leave the office and head to the library to drop off my library books that were due. Then we head to school so that I can turn in my signed contract. I get to stop in and see Lynn, and she is happy to see me up and around. When I get into some detail about what happened she is insistent that I don't go back to the Tempe Doctor's Office, since they dropped the ball. She suggests that I send an email out to the staff for recommendations. I'm not ready to see the kids yet because I'm afraid they'll try and hug me and they're incision height. I get to see some other teachers that I have been missing as well. We grab some McDs for lunch, then head home. Even that little bit has me pretty exhausted. We relax and watch some t.v. and I send out the email to the staff getting some recommendations for a new doctor's office.