From Nohawk to Mohawk in 3 Months

Today is three months since my surgery. Absolutely ridiculous, right? I expected these few months to crawl by, so it seems impossible that it's already been that long.

I keep kicking myself for not writing more often, as I know I'm going to want to remember all the crazy details of these last few months. The worst part of my recovery was so brief (compared to what I was expecting), so the time I thought I'd spend sitting in the sunshine reading novels and journaling has primarily turned into time spent on campus working on my thesis. The latter isn't a bad thing necessarily and I've gotten WAY more accomplished this semester than I expected... and being able to be back on campus with my favorite people has done wonders for my attitude during the recovery process. But I am experiencing a bit of regret that I didn't take more time to do the things that I love and miss while in graduate school (such as the aforementioned reading and writing).

That said, recovery is going just swimmingly. At this point I'm probably functioning, generally, at about 95%. I'm still pretty low on energy and am very sensitive to not getting sufficient sleep -- I used to be able to sleep 5-6 hours at night and then be cranky but productive the next day. Now, anything less than 8-9 hours and I have about 3 hours of productivity before I'm totally done. Not being well-rested means that I'm lightheaded, can't concentrate worth a damn, I'm even more emotionally reactive than usual (yikes), and so on. I think I've done decently well at going to campus and working nearly every day, yet starting my days at 10 or 11am so I can make sure to sleep in a bit in the morning. Being on medical leave is basically the perfect grad school life -- get enough sleep, come to my office when I feel like it, focus on the work that interests me the most, and then go home and lie on my couch and watch TV in the evening. I've definitely had a few weeks recently that I've pushed myself way too hard and been way, way too stressed and I paid for it. I keep being gently (and sometimes not so gently...) reminded that I am still recovering, and I need to chill the f out while self-care is still an option. And luckily (?), my body is still reminding me (especially when I'm stressed) that it's still a tad angry about being fucked with so significantly... I'm trying to be more conscious of those not-so-subtle signals and am attempting to balance work and relaxation a little more effectively these last few weeks of the semester and my leave.

The Recovery Annoyances/Challenges
I'm not a particularly patient person, so I'm getting quite irritated about not being perfectly able to do everything I want to do (and feel like I SHOULD be able to do) at this point. Energy, again, has been one of the biggest challenges. When I sleep enough, I do pretty well throughout the day. When I don't, I'm pretty worthless in terms of getting anything accomplished. Other irritation-inducing things include...

---Physical Stamina: kinda sorta in the same category as energy, but I'm finding that my body still just isn't ready to be doing much of anything physical. I want to exercise, I want to be active, but I still tire incredibly quickly. Even walking from the parking lot at school to my office exhausts me and I have to build in some "short walk recovery time" to my morning (e.g., giving myself 20 minutes to just be still and quiet and even close my eyes for a few minutes before going to a meeting or class... just because of a ~3 minute walk!).

---Vision: ultimately, my recovery has gone amazingly well and I've had none of the major challenges that were anticipated. The only continued oh-hey-that's-not-cool post-surgery "thing" I'm experiencing is some decidedly not fun visual problems. They told me to expect double vision in the few days after surgery and (worst case scenario), they warned me that that could be permanent. I haven't had that at all which is awesome. Instead, I periodically (and randomly) lose peripheral vision in one eye at a time. Awesome, right? Meh. It happened for the first time a little less than a week after the surgery, and then again the two days after that. Totally freaked out by it, I called my surgeon's nurse, who wasn't horribly concerned and suspected that was the result of all the anesthesia that was still coursing through my system. Since then, it's happened -- almost like clockwork -- about every two weeks, and for 2-3 days in a row. Weird. It's starts as just a strange block in my vision. The only way I've been able to describe it is that it looks like a kaleidoscope... at first, a tiny little "sparkly" area in my visual field that gradually, over the next several minutes, gets increasingly larger and stays in the shape of a sideways "v." I basically have to stop whatever I'm doing at that point because I can't see "through" the bright/sparkly thing. If I'm attempting to read or watch TV, it's like I have to try and look around it (which, for the record, doesn't work very well). It'll block half of what I'm trying to see -- so, for instance, if I'm looking straight ahead at a bottle of smartwater, I'll be able to see either "smart" or "water" but not the whole word... or if I'm looking at someone's face, I can only see half of it while I'm looking straight ahead (I can move my eyes to see the rest, but I don't get a full view of it). That part lasts for about 20 minutes, and then gradually fades away. Once it's gone, I completely lose the peripheral vision in that eye for another 15-20 minutes (as in, if I'm looking straight ahead, everything peripherally is black). Then it will gradually come back and I'll be completely fine. SO... ya know, not the best thing ever. I've been in touch with my surgeon's nurse and I'm currently waiting for a referral to a neuro-ophthalmologist (didn't even know such a thing existed!). They don't seem massively concerned about it right now, but it's certainly weird enough that it needs to be checked. I'm not at all pleased about the idea of seeing another freaking specialist, but I'm also anxious to get in there and see this doctor and make sure this really isn't something we need to be doing anything about.

---Pain: so apparently, when a surgeon cuts a ~3 inch diameter hole in your skull, it keeps hurting. Shocking, right? Well, actually yeah, kind of...! I honestly wasn't expecting much from this lovely hole in my head, but I'm definitely experiencing a decent amount of bone pain on an almost daily basis. It just kind of aches and the actual area that was cut is still awfully tender. While I've finally been able to lie with my head flat on a pillow again over the last month or so, I still notice a lot of sensitivity when I'm lying on a hard/flat surface (like when attempting to do something Pilates-ish), or if I'm sitting with my head on the edge of a couch cushion, or have my hair up and the elastic band is pressing right on that area. The other thing in that realm of complaint is that, surprisingly enough, accidentally shoving a bobby pin right into my incision hurts like a son of a bitch. Who knew?

The Recovery Awesome
Again, I'm not patient. I wanted to get through the major part of recovery from surgery and then basically feel perfect and amazing. While that wasn't the case, good stuff has certainly happened!

---No Mas Nausea: seriously! This is probably the most kickass thing so far. Pre-surgery, I was nauseated pretty much 24/7... I had basically learned to live with it, but it made my super long, super intense undergraduate, AmeriCorps, and graduate school days really, really challenging. I was always feeling pukey. That is significantly reduced now... maybe one day every two weeks or so, I'm feeling slightly nauseated. Huge, amazing, VERY welcome improvement!

---No Mas Muscle Pain: another lovely, amazing surgery benefit! The constant achy-ness for no good reason is basically gone. This is one of the reasons why I'm so irritated by my lack of post-surgery stamina... I finally don't physically hurt constantly, so I'm REALLY ready to get out and be active and get myself in shape.

---Super Improved Concentration: I'm sure this is more a result of not being so incredibly stressed and anxious about the existence of Trent than something actually caused by the tumor removal, but I've seen a huge increase in my ability to concentrate and be productive for long periods of time over the past few months. Rather than getting frustrated and distracted over tiny things, I'm just much, much more relaxed in general... and thus, more able to get shit done. This is good!

---Nohawk to Mohawk: technically, I should have put this up in the "annoying/challenging" list, because once it really starts warming up for the summer in Utah, this is going to be goddamn annoying. That said, right now I find it so funny that it's being listed among the awesome. Remember, if you will, what the back of my head looked like just under a week after surgery.....


The NOHAWK... January 18th.

Now? I have about an inch and a half (maaaybe 2 inches) of hair that's grown back over my incision. It looks goofy when I have my hair up and I have to do a lot of fancy bobby pin work to not look like a total freak.........

But when I'm bored/exhausted and want to look ridiculous? I can spike it.

The MOHAWK... April 11th.

Brain surgery is sexy.

Or something.