Recovery

For the first few days after my appendectomy, my shoulders hurt. Turns out that because your abdominal cavity is not supposed to see the light of day, weird things happen when somebody cuts it open. Namely gas gets trapped inside and, having nowhere to go, it rises and settles on your shoulder muscles and sits there and hurts.

Standing was rough. Exercising was impossible. I slept with an ice pack on my belly.

My incisions were covered with tape for a week or so; they were also covered with dressings for 48 hours. When everything was peeled off and I saw my abdomen for the first time, I sobbed. I sobbed because I suddenly found out that I was vain about my belly button. Pre-surgery, it was about as adorable as a belly button can get. Post-surgery, it was no longer adorable. It had been necessarily mutilated with a surgical incision to allow my appendix to be pulled out through it.

Eventually, the pain levels went down, and I was able to mostly return to normal activity. But I was still officially healing.

Now, as of this last Thursday to be precise, I am officially recovered and will now do all things I previously did in the manner in which I previously did them!

That's not to say that things are completely normal. My belly button may regain a more adorable shape, but it will take a while. And my abdomen still aches on and off. Apparently, nerve damage is common in abdominal surgery, and I seem to have suffered a fair bit of it. There's a decent section of skin that is either numb or achey almost all of the time. I was told that would go away eventually, but the healing process is slow.

But I made it! No complications. Nothing weird turned up in my appendix; they didn't find any cancer or anything. (I didn't even know cancer was an option until I was informed that it was good news that my appendix wasn't cancerous.) I was watched over, and I got through it!