Thank you and a surgery healing updates

TL; DR: Thank you for your support! Healing from surgery is going well, no sign of infection and several key approvals were given yesterday. Insomnia and anxiety are unfortunately back and I’m reaching out for help. It’s been 2 years since my diagnosis and I’m finally nearly done with everything.

Hi everyone. I want to thank you all so much for your encouragement and support on my last surgery. All of your kind words & prayers mean so much to me and I am so very grateful to all of you!

I had my 1st post-op appointment yesterday and it went well. Everything is healing well and there’s no sign of infection. Yesterday I got the surgical drains removed, clearance to drive, and permission to raise my arms above 90 degrees. All wonderful things that help me be more independent. (I can reach into the upper kitchen cabinets again!!) I am so glad! I still have weight restrictions that gradually reduce for 5 more weeks and I’m definitely still sore and am not pain free, but it’s all manageable. In all surgery healing is going well.

Unfortunately what’s not going well is sleep and anxiety. I tapered off the sleep medications I’d been taking before the surgery to enable taking the pain medication. It’s not clear, but I may have some rebound insomnia from that as sleep has been getting progressively worse as I’ve tapered off the pain medications. Although interestingly I was sleeping pretty much the same without the sleep meds in the last few days before the surgery. Last night, and Monday night, I literally slept no time at all. Lack of sleep really disturbs one’s mood and so forth as the anxiety has really been ramping up as well with the sleep challenges. I’ve reached out to my psychiatrist for help and hopefully she has some ideas. I’d like to stay off the sleeping medications if I can but I may have to go back on them and then taper off again later more slowly. I’ve also started reading another book about Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia and hopefully that protocol will help. It’s supposed to be the gold standard for insomnia treatment.

In other interesting news Cancer can be a long journey. Last Friday was the 2 year anniversary of my diagnosis. It’s crazy to realize how long this whole process has been. 2 years later and I’m healing from what is hopefully my last major recoveryitem. It doesn’t feel real and I definitely have a lot of emotional work on figuring out who I want to be and what I want my life to look like now that it’s not filled with cancer treatment. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time. I also want to figure out what type of celebration is meaningful to mark the milestone of being done. It’s worth celebrating!

Not much else to report here, I’m trying to rest and heal. As part of that, I’m also trying to work on being ok with being unproductive which is not a strength for me for sure. I hope you are all doing well – I’m so grateful for all of you and your support!

The now “standard” note at the end of posts for website navigation help:

Thank you for taking time to keep up with us and see how we’re doing as well as all the help!  Because, I think like me, much of the world does nearly everything on their phones…I’m adding this note to the end of posts to make website navigation easier if you are on a phone.  If you’d like to read other journal entries, please click here (oldest post is at the bottom of the page).  There’s also a “hamburger” menu in the top right of the webpage that can help you navigate between the journal, ways to help page, stay in touch, and welcome pages.   Please know that reading this page and thinking of us is help!   Thank you for your support in all forms! If you have any issues, please email [email protected].