12 Weeks!

This past Tuesday made 12 weeks since surgery. Not sure if we calculate the 3 month mark by how many weeks or by the day of the month – my surgery was on the 13th so maybe I have to wait until then to say 3 months? Either way, it’s close.

This was my first week of being back to my pre-surgery schedule of 4 daily dog walks. (Before the pandemic, it was more like 8-10 walks/day, but many of my clients have been working from home and/or can no longer afford to pay me to come, so since I resumed working in May post lockdown, it’s been 4-5 daily.) So, dog walking until about 12:30pm each day, then on Tues-Thurs, I went directly across the river for back to back hour-long PT/ST sessions.

The electrode therapy on my throat is getting easier to tolerate, but so far I’m not seeing any improvement. My therapist told me it might take 8-9 sessions before I noticed it helping, so I guess I’ll just stay hopeful. The day after my first treatment, I actually thought it was maybe making my vocal cord situation worse as my voice was much softer and higher than it had been, but we’ve decided it was maybe just that the electrode therapy tired my vocal muscles out. It’s really hard to say since I’m now getting the treatment 2x/week – not sure if my voice has gone back to what it was before the treatment or not. I guess we’ll see what happens over the course of this month.

Monday will be my final PT session. I’ll have two ST appointments next week and then we might go to 3x/week after that. PT these last few weeks has mostly been doing leg strengthening via various weight machines, and really focusing hard on the weak areas of my eyesight. (Looking left and/or down is much more in focus than looking right or up.) I’m having mostly good days now, with the eyes, though Wednesday was pretty challenging for who knows what reason. It’s definitely better overall than what it had been for the first two months post-surgery, but I wouldn’t say it’s yet back to where I was before surgery. But I can function, and when I’m at home I hardly notice it being a problem. I mostly notice it when I’m driving but it’s not ever bad enough to make me not drive. So I guess that is an overall improvement, for sure.

Though I am managing to do all these things, I am really exhausted by it all. When I get home in the afternoons – especially on the PT/ST days – I’m really just done. Not good for anything except watching mindless TV and/or staring at the internet. I know I’m still recuperating, and I need rest. And I am doing that. But it’s still frustrating. Well enough to work and get through these long days of PT/ST in the afternoons, but not well enough to do much else. Sigh. But this is precisely why I’m not going to resume taking petsitting clients right now, because I feel like I’m at my limit at the moment, energy-wise, and I don’t want to overdo it. I will reassess in February after I am done with ST and have gone for follow-ups with Dr. Culicchia and Dr. Ballay.

But hey, I’ve hit 10,000 steps 3 days in a row now that I’m back to 4 dog walks a day! Woohoo! Which is a good thing since it is now Carnival season and the king cake is flowing. I’ve managed to keep those 10 pounds I lost in the hospital off all this time, so I’m glad to have the activity to hopefully counteract the amount of king cake I know I’ll be eating for the next month or so.

OK, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for reading y’all!

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