It’s going to be hard not to be incredibly jealous of me for all that I have experienced in the last week. Today is Monday, and it’s hard to believe my surgery is at the end of this week! This is my last chance to get a few things done before surgery, and as usual I had things planned pretty carefully. I had a certain amount of people I had to catch up with, shopping to do, errands to run, things to clean up around the house while I could still walk. It’s amazing how much preparation is required to go into surgery! Unfortunately I got sidelined by some ridiculous cold and I’ve spent the last nine days doing everything possible to get well. I tackled this cold in the same manner I tackle a race or any other significant event. Lots of planning, execution, and strong follow through. At the first sign of the sore throat I loaded up on cold medicines and stocked the cabinet full of tea bags. Mom made a giant batch of chicken soup, which I had for lunch and dinner pretty much every day all week.
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| My anti-monster cold war chest |
My plan seemed foolproof, and things were looking promising by Friday when I started feeling a little better. Timing was good too, since I had to go for my pre-op screening. I did mention to the doctor that I had a “little head cold” and she didn’t seem too concerned. It was a thorough test, complete with an EKG (which I nailed, thank you very much) and lab work. Everything went smoothly until she told me I wasn’t going to be able to take any aspirin or Motrin for one week prior to the surgery because it thins blood. This was the first I had heard of this, and I wasn’t too excited about it. I’ve been living on Motrin for the hip pain, so I knew that going without an anti-inflammatory for a week was going to make me one cranky individual. I hadn’t planned for this!
Somehow the best of preparation couldn’t compete with this monster cold though, and I got even sicker over the weekend. At this point I got really nervous because if I can’t shake this cold, or it goes into my chest, there’s a chance my surgery will get postponed. By Sunday morning my eyes were sealed shut, and my throat and ears were killing me. I dug through my bag of random old prescriptions, and found two amoxicillin pills. I took them both. This morning I woke up and my eyes were still gross but not sealed shut, and my throat wasn’t quite as sore, so I think it’s getting better! I managed to get a bootleg prescription for antibiotics so I’m on the mend and fully expecting to be good as new by Friday. And if I’m not, I’ll pretend I am. I must not let the surgeon see any sign of weakness. I must not get this surgery postponed!
On Saturday I was feeling pretty down on myself and needed to buy myself a pre-op present. Although I felt like crap and didn’t want to get out of bed, I took a trip over to Best Buy and bought myself a Nook. Now that I can download and read any book I want, I’m hoping time will fly during my recovery! I’ve already downloaded four running books, so they are sure to keep me motivated during the downtime. And on the way home I couldn’t resist a medicinal cup of ice cream from Dairy Queen to soothe my sore throat!
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| "Alternative Medicine" |
Here are the stats on the cold:
9 days
1 ginormous batch of chicken soup
3 bottles of Theraflu
1 bag of oranges
2 bags of cough drops
1 box of really strong cough drops
2 cases of water
1 zillion green tea bags
On a positive note, my cats are thoroughly enjoying all of this downtime and have staked claim to my recliner.
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| Slowly losing the battle of the recliner |
I’m sure this is all going to be funny someday, and I will reminisce about the time that I was so busy taking care of some hideous cold that I didn’t even have time to stress out about my upcoming hip surgery.
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