This is the fifth day since my cancer surgery. I have to take back most of what I said about surgeons being overly optimistic about recovery times. I’m actually feeling pretty good. At least in the mornings, I wake up early feeling well. I’ve gone on walks with Luna (today’s was a significant trek along the river). I have appetite. There are strange things, though: my dreams are bizarre. So bizarre, in fact, that I can’t pin them down to write about them. Mostly they’re a jumble of images in epically cluttered spaces that I’m desperately trying to understand. It all feels very out-of-control and I have the sense that I’m not really sleeping at all, though of course I am.
While mornings are great, by early afternoon I’m feeling tired and need to nap. I also still have a sore throat, a cough (which can be pretty painful), and I just feel lightheaded and wobbly and not okay.
Rather than try to make sense of these rather odd symptoms, I’m just reminding myself that, less than a week ago, I had a significant surgical procedure that yanked an important endocrine gland out of my body. I’m not only healing from the surgical trauma, I’m trying to replace the function of a sophisticated body part with a single daily dose of a very-long-half-life medication. That’s a pretty blunt sledgehammer to use to thread a pretty fine needle, so not feeling 100% yet is probably to be expected.
In any case, I’ve taken the step of buying my ticket for the move to the island place immediately after my surgical follow-up appointment. I’ll be there before I know it, Luna will follow shortly thereafter, and HA once our household goods are containerized and on their way.
—2p