When we got home, my brother and grandparents were there to greet me. My mom stayed for another week to help me around the house. Getting in and out of bed was still tough, and I needed her help to get out. To speed up my recovery, I was to go for many short walks every day. There’s a park just next to my house, so my mom and I would walk on the path around it twice a day, and eventually three times per day. I was still in a great deal of pain, despite taking painkillers every four hours.
One indirect side effect of the pain killers was that I had a poor sleep schedule. Because I could only take them every four hours, if I missed one I would either have to wait until I was due for my next dose or I would have to stay up later. I would set an alarm for 5:50am and try to take a painkiller at six. That way if I kept to the schedule, I would take one 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and finally 10pm so I could go to bed at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, I often missed this alarm or would miss a dose and end up taking the pill later. If I had overshot by a lot then I would grit my teeth and wait until the next four hour interval. But if I had missed by less than two hours and was in a lot of pain I would just take the pill then. This meant that I would have to stay up later, because if I didn’t take a painkiller right before I went to sleep then I would wake up in the middle of the night. And of course staying up late only made me more likely to miss my alarm the next morning.
For the first few days I would often wake in the early morning, between three and five, in a cold sweat and in great pain despite taking a painkiller right before going to bed. I would try to get out of bed myself and fail, and then my mom would wake up and help me up. I would take a painkiller and then lie down and try to fall asleep again.
I spent most of my time during the first week lying in bed on my phone. I would sit at the table for meals, and sometimes play videogames to take my mind off of the pain. I gradually got stronger, and was finally able to get out of bed all by myself. My mom left to go back to Norway, and I started walking two laps around the park four times a day.
Many things were harder after getting out of the hospital. Some I expected, like picking things off of the floor. But others snuck up on me; mundane tasks that I never thought twice about before. One such example was putting a fitted sheet on my bed. My bed is up against a corner in my room, so to put one of the corners on I have to crawl on my bed and sort-of squeeze the sheet between the wall and the mattress. Although it’s obvious to me now why this would be difficult with rods preventing me from bending my back, it never occurred to me until I had to do it. Obviously I couldn’t crawl on the bed; it was hard enough just sitting on the bed and lying down on it. I had no way to get into a crawl, much less get out of one. I’m not sure how I’ll put on my bedsheets in the future. I guess I’ll have to keep my bed away from walls so I can put it on from the sides. But for the time being I had my mom and now my dad or brother put the sheet on.
Two days after getting home I was allowed to shower, as they don’t want you to shower for a week after surgery, and I couldn’t turn on the shower because the faucet is low down near the spigot. My mom had to turn it on for me. Later I learned to kneel down in order to reach it, although this was a difficult position to get into. We eventually got a shower stool so I could sit in the shower to reach the spigot, and a shower hose because the doctor didn’t want the direct pressure of the water to hit the wound.
Not being able to reach things is a common theme. I couldn’t use the sink in the bathroom after surgery because it’s too low such that I would need to bend over to reach it. Many sinks are too low, meaning I have to do a semi-squat or even kneel down in order to use them. We had to put a chair in front of the water cooler we have in the kitchen because it was also too low for me to reach when standing. Doing laundry is much more of a hassle now because I have to use one of my reach extenders or kneel down to grab clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer.
Things just take longer as well. Showering took more than half an hour when I was first discharged, and even now I’m probably ten minutes slower than I was before surgery. Getting dressed every morning takes a bit longer, because I have to use a reach extender to put pants on and a sock helper which takes an extra minute. I’ve stopped doing a lot of the chores I used to because they take too long; emptying the dishwasher is difficult when you have to get on your knees to reach the lower rack.
Two weeks after being back home, I sent the school administration an email saying I was ready to start doing schoolwork again. I didn’t really believe it; I was in a lot pain the entire day and homework was the last thing I wanted to do. But my dad thought I was ready because I was spending a decent amount of time playing videogames instead of lying in bed. I disagreed that this was an indication that I was ready for schoolwork, as sitting was the least of my worries when it came to homework, but I knew that the longer I waited the more work would accumulate and the harder it would be to finish.
This Monday I got a rolling backpack to bring to school so I didn’t carry so much weight on my back. The nurse told me I shouldn’t carry more than ten pounds in my backpack, and I definitely had more than that. It’s a bit difficult to carry around, maneuvering it on and off of the bus, and not having the option to use the stairs (not that I did that much before), but it certainly eases the strain on my back and keeps me from worrying about how much I can carry around.
I’ve had to make a lot of adjustments to my lifestyle after surgery, and getting used to them is a slow process. But I appreciate the eye-opening nature of it, and I’m certainly glad I had the surgery. Plus, I’m sure as I heal I’ll be able to do more and more things that I used to. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to lead a completely normal life free of back pain.
Well, that about wraps it up. I’m glad we were given the assignment to make blog posts. Although I originally intended to only write about videogames, I’m glad I blogged about this experience. I would almost describe it as therapeutic. It’s been a big struggle for me, and putting that in to words is a way of ‘letting go’ a bit. If anyone actually read all these, thanks for coming along for the ride. This is the last post in this series, and probably the last post I’ll ever make on this blog.
- Julian
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