5 Days After Surgery

Sorry I haven't updated!! I've basically been letting myself use the excuse that I have to wait to find my camera cord to upload my pictures first!! :P Well, I just moved to my summer housing. Yes, I am on my own since Saturday (5 full days after surgery) I spent Monday and part of Tuesday at the hospital, Tuesday through Wednesday with Ian at my mom's house, Thursday at my mom's (while she was gone to work and 4 kids under the age of 14 were in said house), and Friday went to my dad's with my sister around 5pm.

It's a fraternity- they're letting girls live in it (along with some of the boys), for the summer. The whole summer is only $350 which is why I opted to live there. That, and I wanted to meet people. So far it's been REALLY boring... but I have a constant need to be entertained, to DO, or to be with SOMEBODY. So I have to get over that!

So, I woke up groggily this morning, having gotten little sleep because I was spending whatever last moment I could with my boyfriend before he left for a week. I wandered into the bathroom in the fraternity. I was shocked, seriously. "WHAT?! Is this actually a bathroom people USE?" So, later that day, after work, I cleaned it! :P It was DISGUSTING but surprisingly didn't take long. Take a wild guess at which one is the "before" and "after" picture. I bet you can't do it. ;-)



Anyway, so I'm doing really well!! There is not even much pain AT ALL. The monotony of my summer vacation thus far hurts more. Okay, I'll quit saying that :P....

But, I will admit I overestimated my ability to move around the first few days after surgery. I was surprised at how drugged up I was! They gave me oxycontin, percontin, green antibodies (clindamycin), colace (an anti-constipation medicine which I haven't been taking since I haven't had any need to, to say the least!) and suggested taking tylenol along with the oxycontin. So I was pretty darn drugged up. So drugged up, in fact, that I think this deserves its own post. :P So that is below, along with the SURGERY DAY post.

My experience as a college teenage girl with a partly shaved-head and 10 stitches have actually been very .. well, uneventful. I'm not embarrassed. The only time I felt mildly potentially put-off by it was when I was meeting people at my new summer home, to which I found a way to subtly interject the fact I got surgery. Everyone greeted it with enthusiastic reception or little reaction.

Hyah! My skin has been subjected to the sharp precision of a knife, my skull to the whirring mechanical drill, and then I have been put back together, tied off with black stitches. What do people really have to think about it anyway? So I don't care. No degree of vainness about the "shaved" spot is possessing me. In fact, I almost love it. I am constantly rubbing the shaved spot which feels intriguing with the short hair. None of my stitches are really where my hair was---just mainly very near the ear, where Ian pointed out, people DONT have hair on anyway. The only spot I have stitches on my hair is right above the earlobe. I count 3 stitches by touch and one of them is actually under hair.

The "bump" (omigod!) is there. I discovered it on Friday night, much to my horror and then fascination. Ok, so we end up with a bump. Huh. I was not told this. Someone showed me their bump as a "terrible" thing once. But I look at MINE as a new interesting thing to show off randomly. I have a bump on my head that nobody can see but you can feel.

So what? It is yet another testament of my body's strength to heal. I do get scared it'll rip through or something though....! It seems like the skin is awfully thin to have the device under... but no need to start building bridges that don't need to exist. I'll ask about that on Tuesday and probably amuse the staff as a result.

I don't even try to hide my head. If I wished to do so, it's EASY to hide with my hair. But for the first few days I wore a ponytail. People say it isn't easy to notice at all, since the stitches are behind my ear. This is a picture my sweet Ian took, when he was cleaning my stitches on Day 3 after surgery. It looks like a great deal of hair is missing, but
rest assured, it's easily hidden. It DOES seem like a lot, but how much compared to some of you, I'm not sure.

Experience 1: Walking to the store with Ian 2 days after surgery. Nobody noticed my ear at all, even though I had my hair in a ponytail. I felt a bit "exposed"... poor me, getting surgery. I was eager to show off my "battle scars!" and also curious to conduct my own little experiment on how many people noticed. They didn't seem to! I think it's because it's BEHIND the ear and really not visible from the front at all.

Experience 2: Standing in Seattle at nighttime, waiting for a bus to downtown on Saturday night.

Me: (Standing)
Random Guy: (Smiles at me as he walks past)
Me: (Smiles back)
RG: (Walks past me, stops, comes back)
RG: "Hey."
Me: "Hi." (Out loud)
RG: (Shooting an look at my head) "Hey, can you talk? I mean, do you talk?"

I can only assume he saw the stitches, or picked up on how quietly and possibly oddly I said "hi."

Me: *gestures* Kind of. (Out loud) "Mmmm..."
RG: "Cool hair."

And as I was ONLY wearing a ponytail.... I picked up on that he noticed my stitches, because he walked past and must've been looking at me from behind, before he came back with the intention to hit on me :P Thank you, nice random guy.

RG proceeded to ask me for my phone number and then on a date, to which I laughingly replied I had a boyfriend.

RG: "Aw man! Damn...Well.. okay."