Whose idea was it for this surgery again??

It's amazing the mundane things you take for granted while going through your day to day routine. You know. Things like being able to plop down on the couch with no regard to watch TV? Or how about just getting up off the couch after watching TV? Or Sleeping the way that makes you comfortable after falling into bed? Or most importantly, stepping into a bathtub to shower?

I will no longer take those things and more for granted. I'm so ready for the day when I no longer have to slowly lower myself to sit on the couch, after which I have to shift and maneuver ever so gently just to get in a comfortable sitting position. And then, without fail, I'll have to shift again in a matter of minutes because the position that was comfortable for me two minutes ago is now making my back ache. And then ultimately I will have to get up off the couch, which I can't do with much ease right now either without feeling like I'm going to pop my incision wide open and have to be rushed to the doctor's to have it re-closed, which will just restart the vicious healing cycle. I'm equally ready to literally be able to fall into bed, not crawl slowly and lay down gently, after which I will not be able to find a comfortable position to sleep in no matter how hard I try. Which results in a crappy night's sleep for me most nights. And don't even get me started on the showers....

I knew that having surgery wasn't going to be a walk in the park, but honestly I didn't think it'd be like this. I guess I didn't really know what to think about it actually. But all this uncomfortableness wasn't in the pictures. I know I'm complaining a lot, but to be honest the whole post-op really hasn't been as bad as I thought. Initially all I could think about after the surgery was intense, debilitating pain, and that hasn't been the case at all. Granted for the first seventy-two hours after surgery I was on a strict pain pill regimen, so I'm sure if I hadn't stuck with that, the pain probably would have been pretty bad. But really the most "pain" I've had are the stupid steri-strips they have superglued to the incision to keep it closed while it tries to mend itself up. I'm exaggerating a little when I say superglued, but even the nurse at the hospital said the adhesive they use on those is really strong. I can't do anything about them either. I've been strictly told not to try to pull them off myself and to basically just let nature take its course and have them fall off themselves. Well, a week later and these suckers barely show any signs of leaving my back anytime soon.

My goal to start off my second week of recovery is to get out of the house. Which is going to be limiting because, even though I'm allowed to drive myself now that it's been a week and I've stopped taking the pain pills, it's still uncomfortable being a passenger in the car, so I'm sure driving is going to suck even more. But I also have a goal of going to the doctor, stepping on the scale, and seeing myself ten pounds lighter, so I'll need to get out of the house to help achieve that. Jen seems to think that's a lofty goal, but I don't think ten pounds in three weeks is completely off the radar?? And it's not my fault that I didn't have four weeks to accomplish my goal. Last week I could barely walk around the house without wanting to sit back down after five minutes, let alone walking around the block, which probably wouldn't have been advisable anyway.

I'm just hoping that getting out and getting some exercise, even if it is just walking around the block for a little bit, will help my mood, too. I don't know if it's the surgery or the fact that Mother Nature decided to stop by with a "get well" present three days after my surgery, but I've been an emotional basket case. I'm surprised Jen can still stand to be around me. I've been crying at the drop of a hat for little to no reason all week. I don't know if it's hormones, being sick of being stuck in the house by myself all day, or just some sort of weird post-surgery depression that they didn't tell me I could get. I'll admit I've been feeling pretty helpless the past week. I get scolded for trying to help with the laundry. I get lectured again after trying to help load and/or unload the dishwasher. I can't take a shower without assistance, which is partially because I'm still scared to death to take a shower. And I just feel like I can't do anything or I'm going to totally screw up my back and all of this surgery and everything will have been for nothing....

But... that's enough pity party. This is supposed to be my photo blog. So where are the photos?? I'm hoping to get new pictures everyday now that I'm going to try to be out and about more in the coming weeks. Yesterday though I didn't have any photographic opportunities arise, so I had to pull a picture out of the archives.

Annual Family Picture circa 2009

Every year since roughly 2007 we have been dragging my whole family outside my parent's house to get a new family picture to send out as Christmas cards. In the previous years we'd snag a snapshot somewhere we all happened to be and use it for Christmas cards.  In 2007 though we girls told the guys they were to wear nice shirts and forced them to stand outside and smile pretty while we posed for a nice family picture. The picture shown is the first year we decided it would be fun to really go for coordination as far as outfits went, and we thought the best way to get my dad (who is always the toughest one to convince) easily involved was to do a Purdue picture.

This isn't the picture we used for our Christmas cards that year, but it's still my favorite from that day. The boys are doing as told and looking at the camera, smiling pretty. And all of us girls are, yes, looking at the camera, but instead of smiling pretty, we're cracking up hysterically. Why? All because my hat is on backwards. To get our family pictures we have to put my camera on a tripod, and my fancy camera doesn't have the capability to view what you're going to take a picture of on the display on the back of the camera. So in order to center everyone in the frame and get it all set up to take the picture, I have to look through the viewfinder, which I can't do properly with the bill of my hat in the way. So I had slipped my hat on backwards, set the picture up, hit the self-timer button, and ran back to the swing to get ready to smile for the camera. I usually have about a three second window to get back to everybody, look at the camera, and smile after I hit the shutter release. Well, this time as soon as my butt hit the seat, I realized I forgot to fix my hat on the way back from the camera. So as soon as I sat down, I started laughing and was like, "crap! my hat's still on backwards!" Which caused my mom and sister to start cracking up, my niece to look up at us like we're crazy, and the boys to continue to do as they're told. (they laughed later) It's one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it's one memory we'll have as a family for a lifetime.