gall bladder recovery

[redbird]

The instructions I got when they sent me home include the information that I could remove the top two layers of dressings on the incisions 48 hours after surgery, and that this would leave a layer of "steri-strips" that would fall off on their own sometime in the next two weeks. It took me a day or two to put this together and realize that the odd cross-hatched pattern stuff over the incisions, with the dried blood in it, is the steri-strips. I suspect this means I'm not going to smell entirely clean to myself until the things fall off (though I did have an actual shower—as distinct from minimal sponge-baths—last night).

I'm still not sleeping through the night. This time, I woke up around 3, took a painkiller, and went back to sleep. Then woke up again around 6, sat up hurriedly, and remembered as I was sitting up that I'm not supposed to do that, I'm supposed to get into and out of bed slowly and carefully. My right side is not happy right now; I suspect a connection.

Still breathing shallowly. Yawning hurt last night. Still not coughing, really, because doing so hurts, but the shallowness of breath and the whatever-it-is at the back of my throat have me wanting to. (Laughing hurts too, but I'd rather be amused than yawn. And it's easier to avoid humor than to avoid yawning.)