Nikolai and the Others (and other things, too)

[deliasherman]

Um, hi

Comments

[deliasherman]

Thank you, sweetie.

[beth_bernobich]

*gentle hugs*

[deliasherman]

*feels hugged* And really, much better now. I can do laundry and cook and everything. Except write fiction. Dammit.

[sartorias]

Glad you are okay!

[deliasherman]

Thank you, dear!

[hilleviw]

For what it's worth, I had a hysterectomy in December (ovarian cancer). The rule of thumb the nurses told me was that for each hour I was in surgery allow about a month of physical recovery. So I was in surgery for six hours, and six months later I'm just starting to feel like myself again.

I hope you give yourself permission to take whatever time your body needs, and let yourself rest without too much impatience.

[deliasherman]

I'm glad somebody told you SOMETHING. My medical team was kind and brisk and largely uninformative, despite Ellen's many and persistent questions. Tell you the truth, I don't know how long I was in surgery--maybe Ellen will remember. Longer than an hour, anyway. I'm resigned to being sore and I know not howish for another couple of months. But I do hope my brain comes back, at least enough to get my syllabus written SOON, since class starts in 2 weeks.

[hilleviw]

My medical team told me a great many things, some of which I didn't really want to know (like, if I'd waited another two weeks to go see my doctor it would have been too late and I'd have been dead by April). This is in part because I work for the medical group which provided most of my care and all of my doctors. Although I work in philanthropy, not medicine, many of my doctors are people with whom I serve on committees, so there's some breach of whatever the medical equivalent of a fourth wall might be

[deliasherman]

That's a tolerably terrifying story. I was much luckier, in that mine was caught very, very early and the procedure was (relatively) simple and straightforward. I spent one night in the hospital, then got sent home. I remember pretty much everything, including the lovely night nurse Evie, to whom I gave a FREEDOM MAZE postcard, with my thanks scrawled on it. But the thinking? Not so much.

[vgqn]

So glad to hear all is well. Re the stolen brain: A friend of mine who has had multiple surgeries says that her brain has a hard time functioning for several weeks afterwards as a result of the anaesthesia and/or the surgery. See the mention of Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction (POCD) in this article.

Glad the problem is resolved.

[deliasherman]

Interesting reading. Thank you. I remember having my wisdom teeth out under general, oh, more than thirty years ago now, and waking up in floods of tears. Not being a weeper, in the general scheme of things, I was horribly embarrassed. I don't think anybody told me this was A Thing with general anaesthetic, but then, they might have and I didn't register it. I was, after all, disoriented.

[vgqn]

I think it's an effect that's only recently been acknowledged. The fact that not everyone experiences it (lucky you), means that many people discount it as malingering or imagined. Very frustrating! My friend says it's been incredibly validating to talk to other people who have experiences the same effect.

Btw, I just finished The Freedom Maze which was superb! I love that Sophie retains her physical changes even though the passage of time was different. A wonderful read.