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A week after colon cancer surgery and I feel good.

Wall art of robot guy saying hi

It’s been about a week since my colon cancer surgery and I feel good! This whole process thus far has seemed to go quite smoothly, and I’m amazed at how quickly I’m recovering.

The day of the surgery was the worst. Between the nerves going in and the pain afterwords, that was a hard day. The first night it was also hard to sleep, and I felt like I was taking a lot of pain meds just to try and get comfortable.

The second day after surgery went well, but I still remember them telling me to get out of bed and sit in the chair. Bending in any way wasn’t on my to-do list, but I did it. I spent most of the day playing cards with my wife, playing games on the iPad, and taking a few slow strolls up and down the hospital hall. Also got in a few episodes of Muppets Now and Duck Tails (Woo-hoo!). 

Things got a bit easier from there and by the third day, I was headed home. Seemed so soon, and yet it was nice to get out of the hospital. Getting into the car wasn’t the most fun, but it’s nice to be home where I can watch movies, eat meals, and play games with the family.

In the past week I’ve been on numerous shorter walks outside, taken showers, and walked up and down stairs. It’s the little things that make me happy.

My eating is still restricted to a low-fiber diet, but I feel I’m eating pretty good food. Not too many complaints here, except all the cookies my family has been making that I shouldn’t eat. I’m also supposed to have six smaller meals a day, which I really like. I’ll slowly work up to more variety in a few weeks.

For now, one of the hardest things is to not help out around the house. I’m supposed to be taking it easy and healing, but that means I can’t do a lot of things. I’m not looking to clean litter boxes, but I do feel I could be doing more to help out my wife. Either way, I’m very well cared for and there’s a lot on the internet to keep me busy.

Overall, I’m doing great. I’ve started a 750-piece puzzle which I’m nearly complete with, written blog posts, and started thinking about Christmas shopping. This surgery has forced me to slow down more than I’m comfortable with, but it’s also allowing me to do some things that I’ve been putting off. 

The next week should get us more information on next steps as I’ve got two doctor’s appointments related to my recovery and one of them should give us more information on what stage the cancer is and if we need to do chemo. For now, I’m just hoping that I’ll be good enough in a few weeks to start putting up Christmas lights. 🤣


2 Responses

  1. Lori says:

    Happy to hear your doing well. Take things slow and listen to your wife wishing you best of luck at doctors appointments.

  2. Great to hear Thomas, thanks for the update! Best wishes for continued successful recovery and hopefully no chemo.

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