Steven Boulet Music

I’ll condense all this later in case someone thinking about a similar fusion wants to be able to do a quick 2 week read through.

6/21 Day After Surgery

Waking up in the hospital every couple of hours isn’t fun but there are reasons. The day of surgery I can’t imagine ever walking again and the sensitivity in my abdomen from the incision makes me shiver at the thought of using the bathroom but 24 hours later I feel a lot different.

Instead of coffee, they pull the catheter out this morning; that is way more energizing than mainlining caffeine. I have experienced many strange sensations in my life but walking down a hall in a thin gown with a significantly sized rubber tube running into and through my urethra is for a top fiver. It’s not too painful if you meditate through the sensation. A lot of what I’m feeling isn’t exactly painful but it would be causing distress if I wasn’t controlling my breathing and thinking. A lot of the same methods I used to manage the sciatic and arthritic pain pre-surgery are still effective but the amount of pain I’m trying to manage is considerably higher.

Nurses come in and start me on an intravenous drip of steroids that helps a lot with the pain, and they have me pretty dialed in on Percocet every 4-6 hours and a muscle relaxer every 8.

By 9am I can walk a lap around the entire floor, and go to the bathroom without assistance. During surgery, I received a lot of antibiotics and we prepared for this with a lot of pre-biotic fiber they day before, kombucha, and probiotic fermented gut shots that I continued taking every day to mitigate some of the havoc antibiotics create within your gut flora. If you’re going to have surgery you won’t regret stocking up and slamming food sourced probiotics the days before and after.

Around midmorning I pass gas; this is the indication they were waiting for before releasing me. We check into a hotel and I am constantly in and out of consciousness, loopy from the intravenous drugs and oral medications, but the pain is hovering around 4, 5, and 6. All in all not too bad.

6/22 two days later

The area they worked on aches like a giant tooth. It radiates down into my hips. I’m able to stay pretty comfortable most of the time and take the occasional walks they prescribe to prevent blood clotting without a problem. They also send me with breathing exercises to prevent pneumonia.

Writing and forming complex thoughts is very difficult and contributes to a dull headache that grows If I don’t stop. At times I feel so good I want to get up and move around, go for a walk, or even stretch but those moments are offset by some pretty painful ones.

Adhering to an ideal diet is difficult in a hotel but worth the effort. We aren’t able to stick to 100% of perfect but 80 isn’t too much trouble. I’m tired constantly; my body is perpetually trying to slip into nap mode. Still, haven’t been able to defecate but I have a few more days before it becomes troubling; Anesthesia-induced constipation is normal.

6/23 3 days later

Sleeping is harder than previously; the steroids are beginning to wear off. Concentration headaches are comparable, but total body ache is increasing. I’m still far away from the pain I originally woke up in 3 days ago but it is flaring back up into the 6 -7 range.

I run through G.O.T. final season and only feel worse after, and I know I’m not the only one disappointed with that. I’m keeping up with breathing and isometric contraction exercises for preventing pneumonia and blood clots, and walking like a boss. I start to supplement with 2-3 grams of kratom in between Percocet doses and this helps.