Recovering From Surgery In August Was A Bitch But Getting Cankles From It Was 100 Times Worse

November 29th, 2018

Before having the surgery to remove the mass on my ovary, my experience in hospitals was limited to zero personal visits. A track record I was personally proud of. Sure, I’d gone to the hospital to visit relatives that were sick but never had I been admitted as a patient. After my experience, I’d be extremely happy to never be a patient again.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Winthrop University Hospital is a great hospital and my surgeon and nurses were the bomb. However, when I look back on the experience I really feel like I was in some back alley hospital in Saudia Arabia getting surgery. The noises, the Pepto Bismol walls, the one window room to the outside world, and the drug-induced haze I was in makes me never want to visit the hospital again.

It wasn’t even the hospital visit that was the worst part. I could live through 4 days of mediocre food and terrible roommate company. What I didn’t and couldn’t expect was the amount of pain I would be in after my surgery or how difficult the recovery would be. The surgery to remove the mass was not only extremely necessary but also my only option so it’s not like I had much of a say in the matter.

After the surgery was over, I was finally able to be released from the hospital two days later after I passed gas. No joke, if you ever have a procedure they won’t let you leave until you have passed gas or pooped. It is a traumatizing time.  The pain was still ever-present when I was released, although I was managing it with some nice capsules of Advil and Tylenol. Getting into the car to leave the hospital was one of the most uncomfortable things. I couldn’t really sit down because any bump we would go over would feel like someone was stabbing my lower abdomen, lovely I know.

When I got home and I had to climb the stairs to my bedroom, I swear it felt like I was climbing Mount Everest. Not because I was tired but because it was so painful to lift my foot high enough to make it to another step. The struggle was real. And getting into bed? Well, that felt like someone was ripping the lower half of my body away from my upper half…not cool. Honestly, before the surgery, I took for granted just lying down and flopping into bed. Post-surgery I slept in my bed but my back was upright and supported by many pillows because if I tried to recline myself I couldn’t get back up. It was a very humbling experience having to wait in your room for your parents to help you get in and out of bed.

Getting up from a chair was no walk in the park either, you would’ve thought I was 9 months pregnant with all the assistance I needed to hoist me up. I had to sit with pillows at the side of me for comfort and had to scoot myself to the edge of the chair to try to stand.

And don’t even get me started on taking a shower. If I had my druthers I probably wouldn’t have showered for a month which would not have been a great life decision. Standing up for an extended period of time was tricky and I had to saran wrap my stomach so that the bandages didn’t get wet. It was quite a sight.

My doctors also recommended that I get up and walk around as much as I could as because that would help the healing process. Now, as we know, I was training for the marathon before getting this diagnosis so Lord knows that I could work out. But after the surgery, walking down the block which is less than a quarter mile, became the equivalent to a marathon. Here’s what my marathon consisted of: I would have my handy dandy, life-saving brace around my wound which helped me feel like my organs weren’t about to fall out and I would put on flip flops because sneakers were too difficult. Then, my mom and I would walk as slow as molasses for 20 minutes and I would be winded. It was a freaking struggle.

Walking around was also supposed to help reduce the swelling in my legs. The doctors said the blood flow to my legs may be compromised due to the surgery and lack of mobility that I had been experiencing but it should heal itself over time. The other alternative was that I could potentially get blood clots in my legs. Casual. Anyone remember Denny Duquette from “Grey’s Anatomy”? Well, he died from a blood clot which led to a stroke, so that was great to hear. I had to get a doppler on my legs and luckily I did not have any blood clots so then I just had to wait for the swelling to go down.

Let me tell you, my legs weren’t just normally swollen. They were swollen so much that I got cankles. I have always had relatively tiny calves as you can see below. You can see my kickass sock tan and my little tiny ankle bones…how cute.

They did not look like that post-surgery AND I GOT FREAKING CANKLES!

CANKLES! For those that are unaware, cankles are unusually thick or stout ankles. My ankles were thick as hell.

My legs were so swollen that they were truly in physical pain.

My legs were so swollen it looked like one of my legs ate the other leg.

My legs were so swollen my ankles had rolls on it.

My legs were so swollen my toes looked like sausage links.

My legs were so swollen that it looked like I had cankles.

Don’t believe me? Think I’m exaggerating? Take a look!

I have been through a decent amount during this whole cancer ordeal. Yeah, having surgery sucked. Yeah, getting diagnosed with cancer wasn’t great news. Yeah, shaving my head was a blow to my ego. Yeah, freezing my eggs was a reality check. But cankles, they were the straw that broke the camels back.

Great news though, my legs are officially back to normal human size and cankles are a thing of the past.

I am almost fully recovered from my surgery and I really hope to never get cankles again, because that was a fate worse than hell.