Sorry for the dearth of posts, I've been focusing on rehab and giving status updates via microblogging.
Well today is my last day in Barcelona, what a beautiful city I can't wait to come back under better circumstances. Here is a bit of a recap of the past several days.
Recovery has been a slow painful process. Ever since I got out of the hospital Monday I've had very had hip pain on my left side this has yet to resolve itself despite some physio (more details below). I have been walking around the local neighbourhood despite this pain and it has slowly improved. My surgical pain has also slowly gotten better - I eventually stopped needing my walking stick to get in an out of bed around Wednesday and then yesterday I sat down for the first time for a meal which was awesome and super cheap - 9.95 euro for a three course meal with big portions as well as a bottled water - quite the find which Ben and I came across just by going for a long therapeutic walk.:)
Most have my days have been spent sort of watching old episodes of Lost and using the Internet so there isn't a whole lot to report as far as action. Today was involved though as I saw my surgeon to get the all clear for flying and for him to check me one last time.
My surgeon came in to the hospital even though its a bank holiday just to see me - awesome guy. :) Says everything looks good, only issues that we discussed were the butterfly stitches that came off because the nurse put my last bandage in the hospital on such that it stuck to half of them. I had fixed this myself by buying some new bandages I bought at the pharmacia. Since I was familiar with the bandages and they had come off he opted to leave them on for another week rather than take them off now. The other problem is a possible urinary tract infection from my catheder. No fever or anything just a precaution due to some other symptoms.
I also asked him about the hip pain and he said it is probably related to the fact that I had 3 levels replaced and there was so much swelling and blood drainage into that area. He said it should resolve over the next couple of weeks and if not to get some physio to work it out.
Other than that I got my pamphlet of dos and donts and timelines for each as well as exercises that I need to read up on. :P I asked him what I could do to insure a good result and he said to make sure I keep walking mostly over the next 3 months. That will be a challenge in winter in Toronto once we get snow so I got the okay to use my elliptical (he was originally reluctant but we both saw it as the lesser of two evils if there is snow on the ground).
So that is pretty much a wrap for Barcelona - For our last night here Ben and I are going out to dinner tonight to Indochine a nice reasonable Thai restaurant near our hotel that we went to the night before my surgery. It has its dining area setup over an artificial river with real fish and lots of vegetation. There is also jungle sounds and a nice breeze so you feel you are on or near a river in Thailand - very cool. :)
So tomorrow morning I fly back home - I looked into an upgrade because of the amount of siting involved but it didn't work out. :( Hopefully the meds and my brace will make it bearable. I should be back in Toronto around 4:30 tomorrow.
Mostly though can't wait to see Trish and Daniel and get into my own bed. ;)
Well today is my last day in Barcelona, what a beautiful city I can't wait to come back under better circumstances. Here is a bit of a recap of the past several days.
Recovery has been a slow painful process. Ever since I got out of the hospital Monday I've had very had hip pain on my left side this has yet to resolve itself despite some physio (more details below). I have been walking around the local neighbourhood despite this pain and it has slowly improved. My surgical pain has also slowly gotten better - I eventually stopped needing my walking stick to get in an out of bed around Wednesday and then yesterday I sat down for the first time for a meal which was awesome and super cheap - 9.95 euro for a three course meal with big portions as well as a bottled water - quite the find which Ben and I came across just by going for a long therapeutic walk.:)
Most have my days have been spent sort of watching old episodes of Lost and using the Internet so there isn't a whole lot to report as far as action. Today was involved though as I saw my surgeon to get the all clear for flying and for him to check me one last time.
My surgeon came in to the hospital even though its a bank holiday just to see me - awesome guy. :) Says everything looks good, only issues that we discussed were the butterfly stitches that came off because the nurse put my last bandage in the hospital on such that it stuck to half of them. I had fixed this myself by buying some new bandages I bought at the pharmacia. Since I was familiar with the bandages and they had come off he opted to leave them on for another week rather than take them off now. The other problem is a possible urinary tract infection from my catheder. No fever or anything just a precaution due to some other symptoms.
I also asked him about the hip pain and he said it is probably related to the fact that I had 3 levels replaced and there was so much swelling and blood drainage into that area. He said it should resolve over the next couple of weeks and if not to get some physio to work it out.
Other than that I got my pamphlet of dos and donts and timelines for each as well as exercises that I need to read up on. :P I asked him what I could do to insure a good result and he said to make sure I keep walking mostly over the next 3 months. That will be a challenge in winter in Toronto once we get snow so I got the okay to use my elliptical (he was originally reluctant but we both saw it as the lesser of two evils if there is snow on the ground).
So that is pretty much a wrap for Barcelona - For our last night here Ben and I are going out to dinner tonight to Indochine a nice reasonable Thai restaurant near our hotel that we went to the night before my surgery. It has its dining area setup over an artificial river with real fish and lots of vegetation. There is also jungle sounds and a nice breeze so you feel you are on or near a river in Thailand - very cool. :)
So tomorrow morning I fly back home - I looked into an upgrade because of the amount of siting involved but it didn't work out. :( Hopefully the meds and my brace will make it bearable. I should be back in Toronto around 4:30 tomorrow.
Mostly though can't wait to see Trish and Daniel and get into my own bed. ;)
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