After Care
This is after care week. I’m the primary caregiver for post operative recovery for one of my people. (The same surgery which caused so much stress two months ago, and continued to cause anxiety all the way until sometime during the first post-op day.) Surgery happened as scheduled on Monday. None of the dozens of catastrophes I imagined came to pass. Right now itching is more of a problem than pain. Mostly my post-op tasks are making sure we stick to the medicine schedule and emptying the drains. We’re not supposed to touch the wound dressings or compression vest until our first post-op appointment next week. That is when we’ll really get to evaluate results, but indications are that the patient will be happy with them. I have a lot of unprocessed emotion surrounding the surgery, everything from dire fears to bright hopes. That emotional processing will happen sometime, but not today. I’m pretty mushy today. All of my thinking is slow. Which made me realize that I’m also managing aftercare for myself. I’m finally out of crisis mode. Maybe.
The unscheduled aftercare, which is also taking place this week, is for our elderly cat who became ill the night before the surgery. I had to call for an emergency vet appointment from the surgery waiting room and then shove the appointment information at Howard so he could handle it. Which he did. And the cat was much better with some fluids. So I am managing food/medication schedules for both a post-operative human and a furry patient with pancreatitis and bladder infection. And I’m excusing myself from many of my regular tasks so that I can take naps instead.
Perhaps next week I’ll be able to tease out some coherent thoughts on all of this.