No weights for me for a bit

[annathepiper]

Went and saw Dr. Towbin this afternoon, who as I expected aspirated the swollen bit on my chest. Y'all don't want to know how much fluid he took out of there. But it was a good clean drain, and no sign of infection or anything. I strongly suspect I must have just damaged something in there trying to do chest-related weights exercises too soon. Meh.

So he slathered some antibiotic on there and taped me up and I'm supposed to leave the tape and cotton on for a couple of days. Then more antibiotic and bandaids. But no weights. At least, no chest-related weight exercises. I need to rethink my exercise strategy Wednesday night. I may have to just switch to doing treadmill for a bit.

Two things learned from this experience:

The 257 drops off at 128th and 116th, and I can walk right along 128th to come up on Evergreen the back way. There's a footpath that goes up the hill and right into the parking garage--and in fact as I was coming in, solarbird drove past me as she was coming in to meet me and park.

Also--though I kind of knew this already--my pain tolerance is fairly high. I tend to quite underestimate the amount of pain I'm in and don't realize exactly how much I was hurting until after the source of pain is gone. I was a little lightheaded just from sheer relief after Towbin was done.

I'm to come back in on the 14th and we'll see what's what then. He said "maybe" when I mentioned that I'd arranged to have the reconstruction done in September, which concerns me a bit, but we'll see how I continue to heal up.

Comments

[devichan.livejournal.com]

May the healing be quick and clean!

I'm the same way about slowly growing pain. Acute pain? I'm a total wuss. Chronic, gradually increasing pain? I never know what's going on until it's gone. When my gall bladder was removed, I was giddy with relief for months.

[annathepiper]

Thanks much. :)

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Hope it all goes well!

[annathepiper]

*snugs!* Thanks. :)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Urk... OTOH, if they bump the reconstruction into mid-October... Vertical Motion! :) (Gotta see the silver lining here :)

[annathepiper]

Hee, that's Vertical Movement. ;) But yes. It'd be nice to be able to properly bounce.

We'll see, though. Dara thought that Towbin's "maybe" was because he wanted to see what the bump was going to drain out. I'll doublecheck with him on the 14th when I go in for my next followup.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

The pain tolerance thing...yeah. Living with chronic pain is "just one of those things." I don't like taking pain meds because when you come off of them you start to realize exactly how much pain you are in.

You're probably not going to run into too many exercises that don't engage the chest muscles to some capacity. Walking even requires chest muscle movement---and it's probably just the rub of muscle that hasn't fully reconnected to skin that's causing the edema.

Bicycle maybe? At least you can read and pedal at the same time!

[annathepiper]

Maybe YOU could read and pedal at the same time, but me, not so much. ;)

I'm probably going to do treadmill workouts for a bit in lieu of weights workouts, at least up until I have the reconstruction surgery. Either that or a reduced set of weights workouts that avoid the chest as much as possible. But it'll probably be the treadmill.

[maellenkleth]

hrmf. Assume fluid mostly water, then bulk density 1.0; one litre weighs one kilo, so it is a great way to lose weight....

may as well look at the bright side of it, ne?

[annathepiper]

There was old blood in it, actually, though some water as well. And heh, not much of a weight loss involved here. ;)

[bloody-keri.livejournal.com]

You probably did do the chest stuff too soon, but the good news is you can still do significant strength training with just leg stuff, primarily squats. It actually has the most effect on your overall body strength, because your legs are the powerhouse of your body. If you had to pick ONE exercise only to do, squats would be it. It's the most effective strengthening / toning exercise on earth, when done correctly. Seriously. So don't feel bad about laying off the upper body stuff for a bit, because although it's good for you it's far less significant in the overall strength routine.

[annathepiper]

Well, here's the thing--my legs are already the strongest part of me and therefore the part I'm way less worried about. I do walk upwards of 15 miles a week, and this area is not flat; I come up a pretty steep hill just to get home in the evenings. And assuming that I get lunch at Whole Foods during the day at work, I come up another steep hill just to get back fro that. :)

Thanks for chiming in, though, I do appreciate it! And I need to at least look at my set of exercises and see if I can do a truncated set of them for a bit. Squats are indeed part of the set, as are other things I could do, crunches and the like.

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

Did he explain what the 'maybe' was all about? I'm guessing that your reasons for wanting the surgery done sooner rather than later are just personal "I-wants-it"? Cause yeah, obviously doing it when it's the best time for you is, well, best. And yeah, if you postpone it, then there is vertical motion and no worries at all about not feeling up for seeing the Boyz. ;)

[annathepiper]

Dara thinks that that "maybe" was because he wanted to see how the bump was going to drain, or something. I'm going to doublecheck this when I go in for my regular followup with him on the 14th.

We had originally actually thought that I'd be able to do the surgery as soon as August, since that was the time frame that Dr. McMillan had estimated would be good to aim for following radiation treatment and healing up from the mastectomy and all. It turned out to be September since that was the earliest she was free. And mostly yeah, I'd like to get it all overwith, just because I don't like being lopsided very much--and I'm also just tired of medical interruptions to my life.

But either way, I am NOT MISSING Great Big Sea. If I have to sit there very quietly and just look all giddy-like at Alan and Sean, I WILL be there. ;D