My first time in jeans ...

My first time in jeans ..., originally uploaded by Ingrid!.

yay! They still aren't too comfortable in the stomach area, but what the heck.

“... they hurt me so,” said the little mermaid. "You must suffer a little, to be beautiful," replied the old lady.

Abdominal Incision 14 weeks

*sigh* Again, not much difference that I can see. So little difference that I even forgot to post a shot last week. It's still lumpy and red, and I'm still feeling the little (sometimes not so little) pin pricks of pain that mean that the nerve endings are coming back to life.

I've been swimming, doing the elliptical, some light weight-training and long walks with Tony. A week or so ago I went down to Canal Street with a friend and we had to wander around up and down the same street a few times before we found the store we wanted, and I could! What a difference, just 4 months ago, there's no way I would've even made it to Pearl Paints, much less wandering around in the plastic store and then looking for Pearl River. Yay for my legs!

First swim since the surgery!

First swim since the surgery!, originally uploaded by Ingrid!.

I only went for about 15 minutes, but MAN, it felt good. I'm tingling with endorphins. Also walked two and a half miles so far today with Tony (a mile and a half this morning, then another mile just now). Yay for swimming, yay for new swimsuits, yay for surgery and feeling better.

yay.

Abdominal Incision 12 weeks

OK, still not looking too much better, but they say it needs three months to work fully. Wouldn't it look better in three months anyway? It seems that this is similar to Groundhog Day (the day, not the movie), in that if the ground hog sees his shadow it's six more weeks of winter, and if not it will be an early spring. Well, how much earlier can spring come than the second week of March, which is six weeks from Groundhog Day? It's the same thing in my book. Anyway, I digress, but only because I'm just not too excited about the results from the Neosporin Scar Solution so far. I'm hoping that there will be a big improvement all of a sudden in the next few weeks because as you can see in the picture, I bought a two piece bathing suit! It's a TYR fitness suit and it's going to be great for swimming laps. It fits great and I was having a real problem with the one pieces; my torso is longer by at least a quarter to a half an inch, so all the suits that fit my hips were digging into my shoulders because they were too short for me. So I'll be flaunting my scars at the London Terrace pool, I hope no one is squeamish!

Comic relief

At first glance, this xray doesn't look too much different fromt this one, but if you look closely, you can see that the fused area is filling in a bit more with bone.

That's good.

Right after I was shown into an exam room, one of the interns came in to see me. Last visit Dr. B. brought this kid in to see my progress and introduced him, saying that he had "scrubbed in" on my surgery. (Thanks to Grey's Anatomy, I now know what that means.) So this kid (I kid you not, he was like 12 years old) comes in and asks me a bunch of questions about pain, activities, etc. He examined the scars and said they looked "good," whatever that means, and took some notes. I asked him about the slight sciatica feeling pain I was getting when I lean forward sometimes and his answer was basically, don't lean forward like that. *rim shot* Who is this guy, Jackie Vernon?

Dr. Balderston came in a few minutes later and said it looked "absolutely beautiful," and was healing exactly as it should, which of course is great to hear. I joked with him that usually when someone says I look beautiful, they are looking at my face, but I'd take the compliment however it came. He joked back (unusual for him, he's usually all business)that for him, face, back, whatever, it was all the same. It felt so good to joke around with him, after all the seriousness in the past year or so. What a relief! I'm now allowed to start swimming again, and can use any of the elliptical machines in the gym, as well as the stationary bike. This will give some much needed variety to my workouts, and help to redevelop my leg muscles. I still can't believe how much walking still hurts my legs (and feet!).

My next follow up appointment isn't until June (three months from now!) and I joked to Dr. Balderston that if at the three month follow up had the intern coming in first, I wondered who would be coming at the six month visit, the janitor? *rim shot*

But seriously folks, everything is going just like it should, and that's no joke!