Look! I’m sitting up for an extended period of time! Yay me!

I never thought I’d have to train myself to sit upright. I feel a little stupid saying it too, but it’s absolutely true. I can lounge semi-comfortably, but sitting upright (as you would at a desk or table) puts excess pressure on my incision and swollen insides, and becomes very uncomfortable after a short while. Since I’m planning on trying to go back to work on Monday, I’ve been "training" myself to sit for long periods of time. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m so exhausted that I need to take a 2-3 hour nap every day, just to be functional. That might throw a wrench into my work plans, but we’ll see how it goes.

I feel better than I did last week, but I don’t know that I can say I feel good. I feel like a Mack truck ran over my stomach, stopped, flipped it into reverse, and then tracked back over my stomach again. I have probably 20% of my muscle strength working for me right now. Simple things like washing my hands are exhausting, and make my stomach hurt. In an effort to protect my tender stomach muscles, I have to sit and stand differently (much like a very pregnant woman would). Yesterday, while pulling myself off the couch, I managed to pull a muscle in my back. Awesome! Now my pain is balanced between my front and back. Oh wait, there’s more. Since it became even more painful to stand, I used my coffee table to brace myself on while attempting to stand up. Except my hand slipped and I slammed my face into the table, and then lay on the floor crying because my stomach/back muscles tensed up when I was falling. Crying, by the way, one of the most painful things you can do with busted stomach muscles. Right up there with sneezing, coughing, and laughing. It took me a good hour to scrape myself off the floor and back onto the couch. I had a HUGE fat lip from hitting the table. I looked like I was pushing my bottom lip out in an over exaggerated pout, but I wasn’t pushing it at all. It was ballooning out there all on it’s own. I can laugh (carefully) about it now, because it’s so ridiculous. Who pulls a muscle while standing up, and then proceeds to give themselves a fat lip mere hours later because they STILL can’t stand properly? Me, ladies and gents.

I will write about the whole hospital "visit" (I love that too, NGS) and procedure on my next attempt at sitting upright. Right now I want to get back to the semi-comfort of laying down and reading the next of the futuristic mystery/romance novels that have become my latest obsession.