Post Surgery: Day 3

Highlights:

• I still feel really good, although a little more sore and tired as I start doing more stuff.
• I changed the dressing over my stitches. 
• It wasn't as gross as I thought it would be, although the holes were bigger than I had imagined they would be considering my lack of pain. I think just seeing how big the holes were made me feel more pain, ha ha. 
• I also took a shower. My post-op instructions said not to shower for four days, which is sort of gross considering all the nasty stuff that's probably in a surgical center. I figured that including the day of surgery, this was sort of Day 4.
• I debated whether or not to change the dressing before or after the shower. Afterwards seemed more logical, but then when I saw how much dressing and bandaging they had put on, I thought there was no way I could cover all that up. (It's still not supposed to get wet.) Plus, I thought maybe I could scrub off some of the sticky stuff all over my leg in the shower. Unfortunately, the new dressing got totally soaked in the shower.
• Showering involved going upstairs to the only shower in the house that isn't associated with a bathtub. I debated which would be worse, going upstairs or trying to get into the bathtub downstairs. I decided on going upstairs, which turned out to be a good decision. Going UP was fine. Coming down I followed my doctor's suggestion and slid on my butt, and that was a little rough (on both my hip and my shorts), but I think my comfort in the shower made up for it. Confession: I used a shower chair. How embarrassing, I have now used a shower chair in my 30s. However, one of my friends made me feel better by telling me that in college, she and her friends sometimes used a shower chair when they were too hungover to stand in the shower. At least my situation seems a little more legitimate than that. :)
• The entire shower ordeal (including the dressing change), from start to finish, took about two hours! It is definitely a challenge for me to adjust to how long it takes me to do things. I am normally the type of person who is always in a hurry - sometimes for no particular reason other than that I'm high strung and impatient. In a way, being forced to slow down might be good for me.
• My arms are killing me. It's not just the crutches rubbing them, but also the fact that my arms are weak, and tire easily.