Pain, Pills and Piper

Sorry for the missing days--we've been busy healing. Also, the writer has changed her priorities, so blogging fell to the bottom of the list.

Henceforth, the writer will likely be Larry. That means I can now sit up for almost 30 minutes at a time, and it means my typing skills are beginning to return.

Let's talk about that four letter word PAIN. First off, that is why you have the operation in the first place. But one has to get past that first few days, and the drugs of choice are Vicodin and Valium. Now the actual pharmacy cost of these two V's are dirt cheap. I left the hospital with a prescription good for about 5 days. I did stretch the Valium to 10 days, but I elected to have it renewed going into my second weekend at home. Nonie, my guardian angel nurse, suggested I would want to get off Valium first. One only has to read about Valium's side effects to understand why. Most of my pain has always been in the muscles the surgeon had to cut to get to my spine, and Valium did help that pain.

Without referring to the extensive notes that Judy has been keeping on everything that goes in and out of me, I think the Vicodin was essentially dropped after 15-16 days--in favor of Tylenol. A couple days at 1500 mg (3 pills a day) and now 1000 mg a day has brought me to 21 days following surgery. Since I was on 500 mg/day of Tylenol for nearly a year prior to surgery, I figure that is very good progress.

Now my dreams are another story! That will have to wait for another day.

Larry