Update and Office Chairs

Monday of this week was the first day that I tried to come back to work a full day. I did manage to make it through to 5:00, but around 3:00 I hit a wall. I was starting to ache and feel very, very drained. I basically went home at that point and collapsed for the evening.

Tuesday I lasted until about 11:30 and then I had to bail out for home. I stopped off at the surgeon’s office on the way, though, and got him to write me up a new set of working orders to go back on half days until the 24th. I took all day Wednesday off to recuperate, since I was in a fair bit of discomfort and came back in for a half day yesterday and today. I’m on Aleve today to help with the continual backache, and it seems to be helping.

I also came in to the office this morning to find that a loaner desk chair had been delivered to my cubicle until my new chair finishes getting built. The ergonomics folks ordered me a new chair last week that will hopefully provide me with more support and comfort for working here at the office. The thing actually looks kind of futuristic. The loaner I’m using right now is very similar to the one they ordered for me and is a thousand times more comfortable than the standard-issue office chair. Of course, the one they ordered for me fell in line with my general tastes - it was one of the most expensive chairs they sell to the tune of over $500. I’m just glad I’m not the one who has to pay for it.

Getting Back to Math

One of the things about my undergraduate college experience that I have always wished I could do over is to go back and retake all four of my Calculus classes as well as Differential Equations. I really enjoyed the math, but an unfortunate hazard of being a poor kid paying his way through college was that I ended up devoting a full 20-30 hours a week to working in the cafeteria in hopes of knocking my college debt down a smidge. As a result I never really got to learn Calculus as well as I wanted to. So, I went through the boxes of books my wife and I have yet to unpack (we moved into this house almost two years ago) and found my old Calculus text, from which I intend to teach myself Calculus again. And if I run into trouble, well, my father-in-law is the professor from whom I took Calculus I-III from, so I’m sure he’d be happy to clear up any confusion I have.

The beauty of WordPress.com is that it has , the math markup software, built right in - and since I can’t get installed on my primary blog, I will probably be using this one for awhile to do things like this:

I’m rather looking forward to this, as I’ve always been something of a numbers geek. Any other numbers geeks out there who want to share their math learning?

Just a Little Refresher

Again, I want to reiterate to folks on Facebook - please take no offense if I ‘ignore’ your invitations to partake in various Facebook applications. I don’t mean to be a spoilsport; I just don’t want my Facebook profile to look like a catch-all for absolutely everything that Facebook has to offer. Mostly, I want my profile to be the springboard that lets people contact me, especially people I haven’t seen in awhile and who aren’t aware of my website. Most of the Facebook applications I’ve seen are pretty unnecessary, anyway. Sure, the information that they contain that lets you learn about other people’s traits might be interesting. I just don’t necessarily think that Facebook is the right place for everything like that to fall out and clutter together.

This is just my personal preference. I’m not one of those folks who’s so enamored with Facebook that I practically have to ‘live’ there. If you really want to interact with me, head over to my website and spend some time on my blog and forum. :)

Harry Potter Discussion

I’ve been running a bit of a Harry Potter discussion on my forum, when I can coerce people over there to contribute. So, if you’ve read the final book in the series (or simply don’t mind reading spoilers) feel free to jump over there and contribute to the cause. The more, the merrier!

Exhaustion

The healing process goes apace. I’m moving better and better with each passing day; I even went out for a brief trip to Wal-Mart with my wife yesterday afternoon. Of course, it was that trip that quickly demonstrated to me just how little ready I am to go back to work - the 15-minute ride back home from the store left me in a fair bit of pain. Apparently, riding in a moving vehicle causes your body to make thousands of micro-adjustments in the course of even a short car ride, and it is these adjustments that my body found rather stressful.

On the upside, however, I’ve backed off on taking Vicoden and replaced it again with Aleve. It’s been a bit of a trial basis for the last 36 hours to see if the Aleve with deal with what lingering pain I have and so far I can live with it. It doesn’t mask all the pain quite as effectively, of course, but for the most part, I’m happy to be able to get off the stronger medication a bit. I have a handful of Vicoden tablets left, and I’d prefer to save them for times when I might actually need the additional pain-killing bulk.

Of course, today I’ve been utterly wiped out and exhausted and even took a 3-hour nap this afternoon. I actually don’t really feel all that much better for it, unfortunately, but then again, my body’s still recovering from a long-term injury and the invasion of a scalpel. You don’t realize just how much muscle mass and tone your body can lose from 6 weeks of bedrest until you start getting up and about again with even the very simple act of walking. Frankly, it’s exhausting, and I still have to pace myself because my muscles have gotten weak enough to make walking around rather taxing. Couple that with the fact that I still have low-grade pain, both from the surgery and from the damaged nerve itself, and the fact that one of Vicoden’s many side-effects is that it has this bad habit of disrupting sleep, and you have a 3-tiered formula for the exhaustion I feel today. I can’t do much about the pain itself except to let time perform its healing work, but I am hoping that frequent walks to strengthen my muscles and replacing the Vicoden with Aleve to hopefully allow me to sleep better at night will help me recuperate from this exhaustion I’m under right now.

I see the surgeon again in just under three weeks, and I believe that part of what we’ll be talking about then is physical therapy. I’m kind of looking forward to the prospect, despite the fact that I know it will probably make me feel even more exhausted for awhile until I can get my body’s conditioning back up again, because hopefully it will mean that I can really start to get back to a regular routine and will be able to strengthen and condition my core muscles to prevent another disk herniation again in the future. Fun as this whole process has been, I don’t really relish the idea of having to go through it all again.

I’m forcing myself to spend some time at my desk every day, as well, now that I’m able to sit without more than just a smidge of pain, as part of my re-conditioning process. Of all the physical positions - lying down, sitting, and standing and walking - it is sitting that I find most exhausting and most difficult still because of the way it puts pressure on the affected nerve. I allow myself the maximum, doctor-prescribed 45 minutes in a chair then I have to go lie down for a bit and give my body a break for awhile. It gets easier, fortunately, but I have a feeling this conditioning process is going to take some time.

Undressed

The dressing came off the incision yesterday. It’s healing quite nicely, but there will probably be a about 2.5-inch scar. No big, really - I’m not especially vain when it comes to that sort of thing. It’s nice, though, to have the tape and stuff off my back, even though it now means a little extra sensitivity in that region as the wound continues to heal. Little sucker itches like a mad creature, though.

I’m walking still better today, taking a longish walk this morning and even helping my out with the feed a little. I went for an even longer walk this evening, and the cool of it is that I still feel rather decent. I’m looking forward to full healing.

Short Walks

It’s nice to be able to get out and walk around outdoors a little bit now. I just got back from a brief walk down our newly tar-and-chipped road. I’m not sure what the exact distance round-trip is, but I would estimate it to be somewhere around a quarter mile from our back door, down the drive, down the road a little ways, and back again. And that’s about the limit of what my body can take right now before I start to be in pain again. But the walking gets a little easier every day, the pain a little less, and I begin to feel a little more like my old self again. It’s fabulous.

Facebook Applications

No offense to those of you who keep inviting me to add applications to my Facebook profile so that we can compare various interests. For the most part, I keep denying such invitations. The reason behind this is primarily a design philosophy. I’ve seen a lot of websites that have so many bells and whistles that they become garish and ugly. When I first entered the world the web design, my first couple of websites were like that. I loved every little thing I saw, so I added it to my web page. Unfortunately, that approach usually results in a site that no one really wants to visit. It’s like planning a day at the park, only to find it overrun with a loud, colorful, brightly lit carnival instead.

The reason why I set up a Facebook profile in the first place was to use it as a means to keep in contact with some folks I haven’t seen in awhile. I want my profile to be a means, not an end, for my friends to get into contact with me and to have a way to visit easily some of my own interests - and so I can reciprocate in kind. As a result, I don’t have much more than the rudimentary basics of a Facebook profile installed. I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook. I spend most of my time online on my own website and blog - so my Facebook profile is supposed to me a launching point for my friends to find me there.

So I hope no one takes offense when I don’t participate in some of these little applications you keep inviting me to. I just don’t want to let the carnival in to mess up the peace of my little park.

Recuperating

As I write this, I have a small pillow lying across my hips, laptop propped on top of it, angled in such a way that I can easily type, screen tilted so I can see it. I’ve got an episode of Angel playing to keep me company. I alternate my between lying down, walking around a bit, and sitting up working on the computer.

For the most part, I’m comfortable. There’s soreness and stiffness, of course, from the surgery itself, and that’ll go away with time. But I’ve realized over the last day or two that I’m in more pain and discomfort than I realize most of the time. Ironically, I felt the best the first couple of days after surgery, but the last couple of days have been a bit more difficult. I have slept a little better at night, but when I do wake up in the night, I usually feel a little queasy, and it takes me a couple of hours in the morning to fully shake the nausea and starting feeling somewhat normal.

The Vicoden is doing a pretty good job of masking the pain. I know this because when I go too long between doses, like at night, or when I lose track of time during the day, I start feeling pretty rough again. So, as good as I generally feel, apparently I also don’t feel very good at all. It’s a strange juxtaposition of sensations, really. It’s no wonder I get to feeling queasy at times. It’s more than one body can deal with.

I’m healing, though. The incision has itched for a couple of days now, and of course the itch is under the bandage, so I can’t reach it - nor really should I. A couple of more days and I can take the bandages and the steri-strips off for good. From there, it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be able to start thinking about returning to the office and working some of my regular activities back into life. A minimum of two to three weeks before I can think about getting back to work, and several months before my healing can be considered complete

Follow-Up

The hospital folks called today to check up on me and make sure I’m doing ok. I have to say that it was the single most personable follow-up call I’ve ever received. The nurse who called me actually took the time to listen and chat for a few minutes, rather than rushing to do her ‘job’ and get off the phone as quickly as possible. It was nice to be listened to and receive assurance that the residual pain from the damaged nerve will repair itself in time. Definitely a cool experience. So kudos to the Home Hospital staff for making the surgery experience so much more pleasant.