The One Month Mark!

One month post-op today!

I took pictures but we have lost the camera-to-computer cord so you'll just have to wait to see how messed up my face is. Ooooohh..

Some updates from the last week-

-Been sleeping laying down consistently. Whether I'm up sitting in a chair or laying down I wake up nauseated, but hopefully that'll one day pass. If I can do it nine months in a row twice in my life, I can do it again now. No vomiting, so that's good I guess.

-We came home!
We've been out of our house since the second week of July, when we temporarily moved into Matt's parents house while his dad was home on hospice. Since then, we've tried to come home twice (before my surgery), but both times terrible things happened to people in our family, the first being finding my tumor. We felt a little cursed and it worked out best for us to stay there until after surgery and some recovery for me at my parent's house anyway. I haven't heard of any bad things happening this time, so I think we're back to stay. Big thanks to our good friend Jeremy, my brother Sean, and to our neighbors, for looking out for the house and cats!!

It's been two days home and the routine has pretty much been - Matt gets up with the kids, I wake up sometime later, Matt gets the kids ready while I get myself ready, we go out somewhere (Benjamin's last tennis lesson yesterday, the pumpkin patch today), come back and have lunch, then nap time for me and Brodie, get up and go to PT, come back and eat dinner, then put the kids to bed, TV, bed, and repeat. So pretty much I'm useless. But I can shower without supervision now, so go me! I'm not quite a third child anymore.

-My head and neck hurt most of the time, but not so much that it's stopping me from much. It's the fatigue (very normal, from what I understand), and restrictions, and inability to see out of my left eye that are keeping me from things.

-PT says I'm doing great! I don't feel so great, but I guess compared to a month ago when I couldn't walk and support my own weight at the same time, it's a huge improvement. I'm doing well enough that we may get to go down to twice a week from three times. I had something weird happen where I called Dr T to get the prescription for occupational therapy (I was told at discharge I needed it. And I think I do, too.), and his secretary called and said "He said you don't need [OT]." Great. I mentioned it to my PT and she ran some tests and talked with OT and they both thought I could benefit from at least an eval. My left hand still really stinks at doing things and shakes weirdly. I told my PT and OT "I know they had to take a little piece of my cerebellum but they said I 'wouldn't miss it'." They were both like :O "ooookaaaay."

The one test they had me do was the "Nine Hole Peg Test" (pic at right), where you are timed as you take pegs out of the bowl and put them into nine holes, then take them back out again. You get to do it once with your "good" hand (my right, thank goodness since I'm right handed) and twice with your "affected" hand (my left), and then your times are compared. My left hand shook and dropped pegs and was significantly slower than the right, though it did improve between the first and second times, so I guess it can learn. They also did a grip strength test and again the left was significantly worse. So my PT called Dr T and faxed him some of my paperwork and I found out today he approved an OT consult! Yey! It happens next friday. I also got some "homework" to do with my left hand. Typing counts!

-My left eye still bothers me. Gold weight surgery tomorrow. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. Eye stuff is gross. And I think I'm going to need a benzo before they come at my eye with the lidocaine needle. Yikes. It's all done under local, so I get to eat a "light" lunch and breakfast. I looked at some pictures of the proceedure, which I wish I hadn't. I also just tonight read a bad story of a man whose weight shifted under his eyelid and after just two weeks it had to be removed because it was coming through his eyelid. Yuck! I'm hoping youth is on my side and I'll have nice thick skin good for implanting metals under. And I'm hoping to loose this plastic wrap. It feels so good when I take it off to change it or take a shower.

-My right hip still hurts, especially while I'm not comfortable laying on my incision yet, but loves being back on our tempurpedic mattress. I also STILL have bruises on my stomach from my twice daily heparin injections while in the hospital.

-I joined the ANA (Acoustic Neuroma Association) online forums, which are like an online support group. It really helps to read that other people have experienced the same results of treatment and that if I can just be patient (which I am NOT known for) things will get better. Hopefully I'll even smile on both sides one day. (Or, as Benjamin says, my "teeth will be fixed".)

-I have a problem with eating where I bite my lips on the left as I take bites of things because I can't move them out of the way of my teeth. It's really annoying.

-I somewhat successfully baked a "Happy One Month PostOp" cake. I didn't have the proper pan so it's kind of brown on top, uncooked on the bottom. The thing must a million calories - 3 cups of sugar, 3 sticks of butter, 6 eggs, a whole package of cream cheese... mmmm.

Pictures to come when we find that cable!