Post Op Day 3: The Pain of It All

By the time Saturday rolled around I was ready to go. I was ready for the IVs to be removed from my hand, and I was looking forward to getting a full night’s rest in my own bed without interruption. At this point in my healing journey, my stomach was still quite swollen. I was also moving pretty slow, dealing with uncomfortable urination, didn’t have much of an appetite, and was tired. Pleased with my progress, Dr. Hall cleared me for discharge.

It took a little while for the hydromorphone to wear off after discharge, but when it did…

THE PAIN!

Here’s the thing, there’s the anticipation of pain and actual physical pain. The anticipation of pain created the mental discipline to not move too fast or push myself beyond what my body was allowing me to do. The physical pain felt like my stomach was going to tear from the inside out at the site of the horizontal incision (bikini cut).

There was also this deep muscular pain. It would do no justice to liken this pain to cramps. Trying to describe it nearly feels impossible, but it was almost like a constant throbbing pain in my uterus. Or maybe if you can picture the stretching of play-dough and imagine what it would feel like if the play-dough was your uterus constantly being stretched instead. That was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. There were also random little abdominal “electrical shocks” that would make me jerk in surprise each time I felt them. Now I know that I can attribute those “electrical moments” to nerve endings working to repair themselves.

I was prescribed both oxycodone 5mg and ibuprofen 800mg. For whatever reason, I thought I could manage my pain with ibuprofen 800mg. I couldn’t. Remember that fear I had of becoming addicted to pain medication? I was once again fully aware of it yet torn between the fear of addiction and taking oxycodone because I actually needed it. I soon stubbornly realized how much of an irrational fear that was. My mom was quick to remind me that allowing myself to suffer in pain would delay my healing process and it quite frankly didn’t make any sense at all.

I would wait to take oxycodone for the times when the pain became nearly unbearable. Quite honestly, all of that fear of addiction was for nothing because each time I took oxycodone, in addition to the pain relief, it made me very drowsy and caused me to dose off to sleep. For the record, I do not recommend making yourself suffer before providing relief. You deserve better!