Recovery, Rexburg

It's been a week now since I had surgery. The grandparents took the older 3 kids with them to Rexburg so I could recover a bit better. It did help cut down on the noise and mess, but Lewis and Samantha started fighting with each other after a few days due to boredom. We relied on fast food a few times since I'm not back to 100% yet. I want to remember what this is like in case I go through something like it again. The hardest thing is not being able to lift anything. Samantha gets offended when I don't pick her up, and it makes me feel like a terrible mom. How recovery has been:

Days 1-3, I took ibuprofen for the pain. I had to be careful when I switched positions, especially while sleeping, because the incision hurt. By day 3, I started experiencing some weird side effects from the anti-nausea patch, so I removed it a day early. I had an extremely dry mouth and blurred vision up close. As long as I took my glasses off, I could still read. Thank goodness for Google, or I would have been really worried about what was happening. I also had some pretty bad heartburn, which I'm guessing was from the ibuprofen. It went away when I stopped taking the pain meds.

Days 4-7, my main complaint has been fatigue and lightheadedness. Thankfully, there is no more pain, just slight itching, and I can sleep however I want. My vision seems to be back to normal, but the lightheadedness makes me feel like I'm wearing a slightly wrong glasses prescription. I've had no nausea at all, but at this point, I wonder if it would have been better than dealing with the withdrawals from the patch. Seriously, I hate the slightly dizzy feeling. Otherwise, I feel fine. I didn't even get sick on the drive to Rexburg.

We left yesterday from Vernal and stopped by Mara and Ricky's for pizza and ice cream for Ricky's birthday. It was great to see them at that house one more time. We then picked up a range for Sam and made it to Rexburg around 6.

The school district released a plan for the kids to go back to school. I feel pretty good about sending them, but of course I worry. I did the numbers for our area, and the infection rate is really low, just a fraction of the nation's overall average. That made me feel a little better. As we were driving yesterday, I had a feeling that the NC trip will work out just fine, but I'm still so nervous about it. I want to do what's best for my family, so driving does mean less risk than flying. I'm just not excited about how long and exhausting it will be when I still don't feel normal. I want to feel 100% right now, but I need to have patience. It's only been a week.

In my mind, if we can make it to August 31st (Samantha's 2nd birthday), we are going to make it through this year just fine. I just wish I could go back to planning things ahead and not worrying that they'd get cancelled. The anxiety I get about travelling has been kicked into overdrive. I never had any intention of making a cross country trip, but here we are, getting ready to leave in less than 2 weeks now. If there's anything I've learned from my surgery recovery, it's to just focus on what's right ahead of me. When I try to look all around, I get a little dizzy.