Recovery: Week 2 (Jul 27–Aug 3)

This week was a little better, but I didn’t see any significant improvements. Showering and getting ready in the morning was still a challenge since I couldn’t sit or stand for longer than about 20 minutes without completely exhausting my abs. Unless I was reclining it felt like the morning after ab day at the gym (in addition to the soreness I had from surgery). I kept trying to go a little longer to build my strength back since I had to go back to work, and starting to eat meals at the table again helped.

July 28: The swelling is a little less, but you can see how much the elastic from my leggings dug into my skin. Ouch!

Left incision. The glue was starting to get a little dirty.

Right incisions. You can see they're starting to heal already.

I was planning to go back to work after 10 days, but shortly before this the itching around my incisions became unbearable and was literally keeping me up at night. Once I almost ripped my incision open again I figured out I needed an antihistamine. Zyrtec did the trick and the itching drastically lessened. Benadryl would’ve probably worked well too, but I wanted something non-drowsy.

After 11 days I made it to work and managed to survive the full 8 hours with a pillow on my chair and a stool to put my feet up so I could halfway recline. The hardest part of working again was picking work-appropriate attire (I was still limited to loose and low-riding clothes and underwear) and driving. Since I’d been off narcotics for a few days I was technically allowed to drive, but I didn’t yet feel comfortable behind the wheel so I was hitching a ride to and from work.

Other symptoms of note were minor lingering nausea (not all the time, just every once in awhile and the Zofran worked great), sleeping in my own bed again, bowel movements were still really painful and were becoming more normalized, a sore back (again, I’m a side sleeper), continued discharge and bleeding (but less than the week before), and a sore belly button incision (that one hurts the most). Positive changes were less swelling and bloating, the ability to lean over a little, and the ability to eat a little bit more at once (eating too much at once caused my stomach to stretch too much and put pressure on my surgical site).