No motivation

Since I've had my gall bladder surgery on the 5th of January and was hospitalized for 3 days, as it was worser than expected, resulting in an open abdomen surgery.  They placed me in the ICU overnight so they can monitor my condition closely, and that seems to have scared a few people...I was extremely sore right after the surgery, and was given a pain pump that when I press a button, I release Demerol, but I could only give myself a dose every 30 minutes.  The remainder of the 5th, and all of the 6th passed me by in a high stupor, but I was quite aware who my visitors were, except for one lady.  I began to ween off on Demerol on the 7th, and was released from the hospital on the 8th.

It snowed late Sunday night, probably begining right after we went to bed.  I got up 2 hours later and walked the floor to work the pain and stiffness out, while waiting on the Lortab to take effect.  We already had what looked to be 2 inches on the porch rail.  A couple of hours later I got up again, and noticed that it was still snowing, doubling the thickness on the porch.  Later that afternoon through the evening, we had light freezing rain icing over the snow.  My wife and I prepared to go to my mom's should our power go out, as we live in a total electric home, and she had gas heat.  The storm ended Tuesday, and we never lost our power. We had about 7 inches of snow and quarter of an inch of ice by freezing rain.

It was nice looking out the door and windows over the next few days at the iced snow, which is only halfway melted today, 6 days later.  It should melt more qiuckly over the next two days as the temps warms a bit more before raining.

I had a follow up with the surgeon, and he removed the drainage tube and 15 clamps holding the incision together.  I was cleared to go back to work the following Monday, as I have a desk job and doesn't lift anything over 20 pounds.  I've missed a total of 8 days of work, and will have 25 hours of PTO time to fill it in.  I should get a small short term disability insurance payment as well, but for only 1/2 of the pay I lost after 7 days.  But we're not going to hurt financially too bad, as some of my co-workers took a collection at work and a few of my church friends gave some cash as well.  Plus some other co-workers gave Rosie and I a bag of food, with microwave items and some snacks.  Mom also gave us a bit of food too.

One would think I would take some time to write here during my recovery at home in the past week.  I just didn't really have the motivation to write, possibly due to all that pain medication?  I don't know.

These two photos shows what my abdomen looked like after the surgery: