🚑 **Health Update, March 27 , 2024**🚑 [***expand to read, o..

🚑 **Health Update, March 27 , 2024**🚑
[***expand to read, or keep scrolling if you aren't interested in updates and personal life stuff!***]

It's hard to believe it's been a month since surgery!
These past few weeks haven't felt real... more like scattered dreams from the groggy moments between waking and sleeping.

In case you aren't caught up to speed - I had surgery on the 28th and then spent two weeks recovering in the hospital. Almost as soon as I was discharged I was rushed back to emergency for a complication. I had a total bowel obstruction, which is extremely painful and also life-threatening if untreated. Thankfully the doctors were able to clear the obstruction without emergency surgery and I was fixed up and sent home after a day.
I had a second emergency re-admission a few days after the first one, also for an obstruction. The treatment and outcome was the same, and I was sent home after a day.

The reason for these ongoing obstructions is a bit of a mystery because I have been eating an almost entirely liquid diet since surgery. Our best guess (and by 'our' I mean myself and my medical team) is that my bowels are being effected by the large dose of powerful painkillers I am taking.

The hefty dosage of analgesic medication i'm taking coupled with the length of time I have been taking it means that I have to wean myself off of them at a slow pace. I'm working with a team of doctors who specialize in preventing withdrawal, but it's not a perfect science: some days are exceptionally hard.

In case you didn't know this about me - I struggled with addiction in my past. I'm proud to say that i've been (mostly) sober for over 12 years now!
My situation is complicated by health issues that require the types of medicine that can cause or worsen addiction.
I have been on and off of these medications for many years.
Because of that, my body has a heightened sensitivity to decreasing the dose of these types of medications.
I have to taper at a snail's pace to avoid the unendurable symptoms.

My abdominal pain won't lessen until I can drastically reduce the dose of my meds - which I can't do any time soon - so for now I am focusing on consuming lots of fluids and getting a healthy amount of exercise (walking) to keep everything from seizing up inside of me.

Also - i'm finally HOME - in my own house! For the past two weeks i've been staying with @ceressinclair (and spent a couple nights with @natie as well!). I finally feel (somewhat) strong enough to take care of myself, warm up my own soup, and shower without the fear of falling and banging my head.

Unfortunately I'm not well enough to drive yet, and I am not capable of taking care of miss Ladybird so she is still in boarding for the time being. I was thankfully able to see her over the weekend for her puppy birthday, which sparked a lot of joy for me and helped to motivate me to get better as soon as I can!

I still have to catch up on my messages (there were over 100 here, and now it's down to 77), and have lots of editing to do when I am ready. I have some fun ideas for easy content creation while i'm recovering - and I think you guys will be excited to hear about it! For now you'll have to sit tight.

Thanks to anyone who actually sat here and read this, you're the MVP. If you feel like sending $5 so that I can walk to a cafe and get a tea today that would be super cool - but if not I still adore you and appreciate you for being here and taking the time to read my stream-of-consciousness.

cheers 🥂