So I guess now would be a good time for an update.
Last Wednesday I went to Dr Movahed's to have the draining fistula bebrided. I also wanted him to look at a stitch in one of my neck scars because it had broken through the skin and was irritating. This was not one of my better visits with Dr Movahed. And by "not better" I mean we were barely on speaking terms by the time I left.
I had already gotten myself pretty wound up about how bad this debriding was going to be so I was already in a mood. And then he started trying to remove the stitch mentioned above. That bad boy was
not coming out and after a few minutes of him yanking on it and me whining about it, he gave up. We moved on to the debriding part of things. This required pretty much a mini surgery; masks, gowns, sterile trays, the whole nine yards. That was a lot more than I was expecting. Because of the above mentioned barely on speaking terms, I'm still not quite sure what he did but I know it involved a
large syringe, a lot of tugging and pushing on my lower jaw, stitches, and something called (much to my terror) a bone rasp. And we decided that since we were "in surgery", why not cut open that incision site on my neck and remove that stitch. So now I'm full of new stitches and empty of happy; or even civility to be honest. How my Mom has had two hip replacements and several eye surgeries while conscious is beyond me. I would have murdered somebody part way through any of those. I've never been so happy to get the hell out of his office before.
I went home and spent the next few hours wallowing in my own self-misery. Well, actually I went home and wallowed in a percocet and when I woke up a few hours later, I felt absolutely
horrible about how I had acted at the office. I texted Dr Movahad that night to apologize and he seemed cool. But I still owe him a huge apology when I see him next week. On the upside, the bebridment appears (knock on wood) to be healing nicely. I don't know about the neck thing because he said to leave the steri-strip on until it fell off of its own accord which it hasn't done yet. Though Shawn (who saw me on Thursday after all the drama) says it looked a lot less swollen with no redness or anything bad-looking on Monday.
I've added a new weapon in my arsenal against depression.
This a a Verilux full-spectrum lamp or as we call it, the Happy Light. We've actually owned it for a couple of years but never really used it. Well, I'm using the heck outta it now. I spend about the first hour to hour and a half of each morning bathing in it's bluish glow and I think it's helping. At least I seem to be capable of civil discourse later in the day (it's hard to tell if you have that capability when you're home alone except for the cat who won't come out of the bathroom because it's too cold any place else in the house). So I'm going to keep doing that. And I started the step-down process on the Klonopin last night and I'm hoping that will make me less half asleep and irritable bitchy for the rest of the day once I'm off it.
Shawn (my PT) is very pleased with the opening that he can get when he stretches my jaw. I can't get anywhere near that myself but he says that's normal at this stage. He just wants to keep the scar tissue growth under control until my muscles and nerves heal enough to take over. I am swallowing all my pills now, which is a heck of a time saver and means I am getting some mobility since I can open enough to stuff a pill in there.
For painkillers I'm taking tramadol twice a day and half a percocet at bedtime. Occasionally I'll take a Tylenol if things are getting bad but I'm not close to my next pill and that usually works.
I've learned how to remove and replace my own elastics so I can do that for my home PT. And I'm getting really good at it because I'm doing it four+ times a day. Practice makes perfect.
On the whole, things are doing fine. So, on to the important part: The Cute!
And yes, I'm still cold!
