I'm no longer taking the Percocet, as of day 5 I have been taking Tylenol instead. I still take the arnica Montana for swelling and bruising, I honestly wonder if its working. I have no way of noting if my bruising or swelling is less because of the arnica, I don't have a previous surgery experience to compare this to. So I guess I'll keep taking it, and hope its helping.
I thought I'd show a little about my bandages. I am so proud of myself! I managed to shower, wash my hair, even shave my legs (very awkwardly and not very well), and do my own bandages today without any help!! Yay me! Step one towards independence! Now I just need to be able to stand up, bend over, reach above my head, lift things more than a few pounds, and sleep in my own bed...then maybe I'll feel somewhat like a real person again. So back to the bandages. My doctor has me starting on day 2, shower and change my bandages every day... It sounds great but manis it tiring! I bought all non-stick gauze and I'm glad I did, no nasty stuck bandages to deal with, they really are non-stick! So I use three 3x8 bandages to cover my abdominal incision, one 2x3 bandage on my belly button, one 3x4 bandage on each breast, and one regular gauze square under my drain tube to catch leaks, and paper tape to stick it all to me. I also have extra gauze squares, I use one with antibacterial soap in the shower to wash my incisions and the other after showering to pat the incision sites dry. I keep a chair set up with a towel over it set up next to the bathroom counter so that I can sit while I put on some of the gauze and while I set myself up, etc. the towel is great after the shower to dry my butt, lol because that is still hard for me to reach. This is my some of my setup
I put the gauze pads out with their first strip of tape on them and add the line of bacitracin that the dr says to put on my incision. That way when I get out of the shower everything goes on quickly, so I'm less exhausted when I'm done. I also made a little place to hang my drain
It's a moisturizer in a drawer, the bottle is taller than the drawer so it can't close and it's at just the right hight that I can stand or sit right there without having to deal with moving around the drain or worrying about dropping it (oh, holy ouch!!). And here's the end product!
And just for comparison sake day 2 vs day 7
Side view day 2 vs day 7
It's a bit harder to take my own picture...so I had to cover some things, lol. Sorry about the lighting differences... No I have not been out tanning!
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