In the Public Eye

I think I'm on the last legs of looking like a surgical patient even though it still feels like my head's been twisted onto my neck a little too tightly, and I don't like the dull ache that comes from trying to sleep on my side. Some throat bruising still has to resolve, there are little knots under the skin at the outside corners of my eyes that should smooth out over the next few days, and I keep finding bits of the outside stitches on my lower eyelids as the inside stitches dissolve.

But I did go out to the grocery store this afternoon and there was no screaming from the patrons nor mothers trying to shield their babies from my looks. In fact, no one even blinked looking at me. So I guess my self imposed isolation period is over.

There are a couple of things that have surprised me during this little respite from the world; things I wish I had had the forethought to ask before the surgery, or had the brains to have figured out after. Like:

The itching as I healed was all but intolerable, and kept me from sleeping well more than one night. When I asked the surgeon for more sleeping pills at our one week check-in, he suggested benedryl to both sooth the itch and make me drowsy. Wish I'd thought of that ahead of time. I already had several bottles in the house.

The ointment used to lubricate the eyes and keep the incisions on the eyelids moist came in very tiny tubes. I used up two tubes and started on the third before the stitches came out. I'm glad my husband was available to run out to the drug store for more when I used up the first tube on day 3. If I hadn't had him to run errands I would have been in big trouble. Wish I had been instructed to pick up more than one tube to begin with.

The week before surgery I picked up several books on tape, a novel, and a number of movies to watch as I laid around and ate bon bons. Nobody mentioned that my eyes would be too swollen to read or watch TV for at least a week, and that my ears would be too tender to wear earphones (or hold a phone to!) for just as long. Those first five or six days were so mind numbingly boring that I wanted to scream. Of course, I can't think of what other amusements I might have planned for myself if I had known I would neither be able to see or touch my ears.

During my initial consultation I asked, as I suppose all potential patients do, how long I would be "out". The standard reply is "about a week." Which, in retrospect, is about right; after my one week check-in I went to the movies. But my stamina is compromised; I was in pretty good shape before surgery and now I'm pretty much worn out by simple exertion. When you consider that I'm at the early end of the age spectrum of women who do this, a week isn't really long enough to be back fully in the swing of things. So a better answer might have been "a week to be presentable in public, another week to be back to full strength." Maybe then I wouldn't have planned quite as much activity in post-op week 2.