Decision Made-All Guns On Board

0 lymph nodes. That is great news. The soreness will take a while to dissipate but it will get better. I drove to my follow up surgeon's appointment 3 weeks after the surgery. The only thing that bothered me a bit was the seatbelt. It pushed up against my incision that I had to pull it out the whole time with my left hand while driving. It wasn't painful just annoying. I've been out of my surgery for a year and a half now and I feel fabulous. You will too and you will get through the chemo and on your way being healthy again! 

Congratulations on the good results.  I started driving two days after leaving the hospital.  The bumps were a bit painful at first, but independent mobility is core to my life.

I had problems taking Ibuprofen, perhaps it is novel to me, or perhaps it is influenced by the chemo.  But it made me dizzy and caused fainting.  I did a lot better with plain aspirin, which may not be too good right after surgery (I took no pain meds when I got home after surgery).   Maybe you could try medical marijuana or a glass of wine?

Bromelain is reputed to help reduce swelling after surgery and to help with healing.  It also has anti-cancer potential.

Best of luck on your new path.

I tell the story of my last liver resection, I came out of recovery with two strained biceps and the long back muscles on my right side. The opioids they gave me were inadequate and all my begging for something else just looked like drug seeking behavior, I guess. It hurt so much to lie back that I finally crawled to the chair by the bed [12 hours out of surgery] and spent the night leaning forward with the edge of the bed catching me if I nodded off too far. Come mid-morning a nurse offered me Benadryl, which I didn't know about, but after taking I barely made it on to the bed before passing out for several hours. My surgical wound was 12 inches up and more then twelve to my right side, but thosed strained back muscles hurt way more. The moral of the story came when it was time to fix the big hernia. I made sure they knew opioids were ineffective for me, and the dilaudid worked much better. I'm happy to hear the nodes, the margins, and the plans are all good, you may suprise yourself in coping with the chemo, I did. About a week after getting home I drove short trips  just to feel normal again. If you do, take your pillow, lots of reasons to cough out there, lol. Upward and onward...............................................Dave

Is it possible the shoulder pain is from them dilating the abdomen during surgery? I've heard that with laproscopic surgeries people get shoulder pain because whatever they use to inflate the area so they can work actually leaves the body through the shoulders so many people have shoulder pain for a while. This isn't laproscopic but mayeb they do that a bit anyway?

Jan

So wonderful that your lymph nodes were all negative and surgeon got down to clean margins! Hoping the post op pain becomes more tolerable and you are soon feeling up to snuff. What kind of chemo are you going to do? Happy to hear the Avastin is not going to be included--I think its a bad drug myself...FDA banned it for breast CA patients. Have you read the book by Dr. Keith BLock--he has the same thoughts of using all kinds of treatments to battle cancer--the best approach IMO!! 

Fantastic news. you go girl . 

feckcancer said:

interesting about the

interesting about the Bromelain (pineapple). Years ago i was told it is also good to help with the pain and healing from Giardia which is a disease caused by a parasite that attacks the gut. Thank you for posting

One of the lost threads in the CSN crash was on bromelain.  I started taking it for its anti-cancer potential, and was surprised to find that it helped with my sleep apnea (another condition correlated with colon cancer and another lost thread).