So I've been home from the second surgery now for a week, and things are progressing. The first few days were really rough, but things are starting to ease up now. Everybody said it would be easier, but I almost prefer the pain from the first surgery to the symptoms I have now. Pain is easier, you take a pain pill and find something to occupy your mind. I don't have anywhere near as much pain now, but I've been in and out of the bathroom so much it's not funny. Still, I will say that it is definitely getting better. Things are slowing down and getting much easier to deal with. My trips to the bathroom have been getting less frequent and the changes I've made in my diet are helping to reduce the inflamation as well. All in all, I'm definitely headed in the right direction.

I have been getting a pain in my stomach though that I'm not sure what to make of. It feels like things are just pulling on something tender, like the stitches on the inside are irritated and just pulling in an uncomfortable way. It doesn't hurt all the time, but I notice it more when I've been up for a while walking, unfortunately. Also, the wound where the doctor did the reconnection still has the steri-strips, and the left side of that wound is still completely numb and swollen. It's only been a week so I'm not too worried yet, but I would have thought it would have made more progress by now. It's not red or looking infected in any way, and the tugging pain completely goes away when I'm sitting down, so I don't think it's too serious. I have a doctor's appoint toward the end of this next week, so unless it suddenly gets worse, I'll at least see what the doctor thinks is going on then.

I'm still walking, but I've started to slow down because the weather is not as nice. In the week I've been out, I've walked 16 miles worth of laps around my pool. Added to the 11+ miles I did while I was in the hospital and that 27 miles in less than 2 weeks. Not bad for an invalid.

Also, I posted a couple of long blogs under the label "semi-related medical" which are regarding other medical things I've gone through that in some way ties into this whole UC thing. The one about my hands I had posted elsewhere but I figured I might as well post it here so it's all in one place since it could be a potential contributing cause.

-jk