Poor week

Well, it's been a poor week, recovery-wise. I've always been aware of a pain where the drainage tube had been sticking through me, on my left side, but it became particularly bad towards the end of last week. Saw the surgeon on Tuesday. He checked that there was no broken rib (the pain was just like that of a broken rib) and, finding none, suggested that a nerve had become trapped during the operation. Time would be the healer, but meanwhile he prescribed some morphine patches.

I put up with a patch until Thursday lunchtime, when I just had to remove it: I was falling asleep all the time, not eating, dizzy, vomiting… and the patch did little to relieve the pain!

Yesterday I had an injection of some sort of anaesthetic, which caused some temporary relief, but today the pain is back again. At least now I am feeling less tired than before, so something seems to be getting better.

I thought you'd be interested in seeing how the scars left by the incisions progress, so here's a "before and after".

Before

The "before" pic was taken just a couple of days after the operation and the whole thing looks rather like a butcher's shop. Elise calls it Feretería David. The white patch at the top right is the dressing of the drainage incision.

The staples were removed during two visits. A machine very similar to an office staple remover is used and very little discomfort is experienced during the procedure: just a little pinprick at the removal of each staple.

After

The "after" image was taken last Sunday (16 December), so close to three weeks after the operation. The whole thing already looks a lot more apetizing (well, that's one way of looking at it…) and in time the marks of the staples and other dark areas should disappear, leaving behind an almost pristine me. Well, that's the theory, anyway.