Day 4 : Walking Outside

Lizzy and Anastasia helping me (doing all the work) move back to my apartment.

Yesterday afternoon marked 72 hours since surgery, so I stopped using ice packs as the instructions suggested. It was liberating not being a hotdog but man does it feel like the swelling got even worse.

Top right : Waking up this morning
Left and bottom : this morning.

On top of that sleeping last night was a struggle due to clogged nostrils. I tried hot showers, saline nasal sprays, cue tips and h202, and bargaining. None of those worked. I could have used the Afrin nasal spray, but I didn't want to take a chance with rebound congestion. Somewhere around midnight with straws up my mouth, I got a solid 5 hours of sleep finally. Woke up at 6am for another pain med dose, then slept till 8am.

Now it's 8:30am and I just had a nice hot shower, and I'm itching to go on an outdoor walk, perhaps back to my apartment to see how the stairs feel.

One thing I've noticed is when I stretch my lower jaw, I feel a sharp impingement and my chin goes numb with pins and needles again. I think I'm rubbing a nerve around there every time I swallow too heavily. I hope I don't bruise it to a point where it can't recover.

The mental nerve near the chin. It's mental.

My mum tells me it's the Mental nerve, and there's a myelin sheath around the nerve, and it is swollen (edematous), so the whole thing where it's getting stretched randomly is fine, it just feels weird.

(Update 9:48am) Finally walked outside back to my old apartment! It felt great both getting some fresh air and getting stared at by random people. I was tempted to make faces at them. I guess technically I was already making a face at them.

Finally I went outside!

My mum cleaned up my apartment something fierce. Today seems like a good a time as any for me to move back into the apartment and sleep here. As a bonus, I can start programming & playing video-games again if I do so.

(Update 11:12am) Lizzy and Anastasia are going to come by soon to help my mum move stuff back to my apartment. Downing protein shakes and broth is old hand for me now. Not needing an ice pack has made things a lot simpler. I've been dealing with a mild headache all day (warm head), but not hot enough to be considered a fever. It's mostly just annoying. I was able to walk up the 4 flights of stairs to my apartment without issue as well. I have a fitbit charge hr so I was able to see my heart rate rise during the walk. I would take a break anytime my heart rate went about 110 bpm, as that was about when I'd start to feel a little light-headed.

After my early lunch, I brushed my teeth with mouthwash, gargled mouthwash, and gargled medicated mouthwash. This is around the 10th time I've done this, and I've become exceedingly efficient at it.

(Update 2:16pm) I was able to recruit Lizzy and Anastasia to become pack mules and move all my stuff back to my apartment.

It felt strange not being a manly man carrying all the stuff. I got used to it in about a 20 seconds.

Today was the most I've walked yet, and it was surprisingly intense. Just going up and down 4 flights of stairs took it out of me.

Over the course of these days, my mum has done so much work that she has finally reached her limit for trying to understand my mumbling (or read my typed messages). Luckily she'll be able to go back and be done with taking care of me tomorrow, luckily we made it to moderate self-sufficiency before we reached her limit.

After some rest, I've noticed that my face feels a lot less swollen and heavy! I think all that walking has helped a lot.

Blue shirt from Day 3, Black shirt from today (Day 4)

(Update 2:55pm) In other news, I've possibly been doing too good a job of eating since surgery, my belt size is still the same, and my weight is down only 3 lbs. I consider this an issue since I 'bulked up' 10lbs before surgery (code for eating lots of donuts). I suppose it's probably for the best.

(Update 4:40pm) Now that i'm back at my apartment, I started playing a new game called Oxygen not Included, this is appropriate considering the amount of trouble I've had breathing lately. Time is whizzing by much quicker now.

(Update 6:18pm)
** TMI Warning **


I just pulled out the most glorious bloody booger, and my nostrils are almost as clear as they were before surgery, I am hoping this will last through the night, that I may get a full nights rest finally.

On to Day 5.