I’m relieved to report that my occipital nerve stimulator has been implanted permanently for a whole week – after the seven day trial period -- and so far I don’t regret my decision to do this one bit. Which is not to say that the last two weeks have been easy or painless. Honestly, there’ve been several drugs that were harder to adjust to than this surgery. I don’t want to bore anybody with a day-by-day assessment and examination of the last couple weeks. Instead, I offer a few (I hope) observations:
- I had hoped that having this surgery would make life a little more low-maintenance, which I also hoped would apply to traveling. Since all of my doctor’s appointments and procedures lately have been at the crack of dawn and out of town they’ve required a few over-night trips. Before this surgery I often felt like a roving Walgreen’s, transporting all the medical supplies I could possibly need via a suitcase and my purse. But now, I’m starting to feel more like a traveling Radio Shack. When I was packing my bags Monday night I noticed wires everywhere: 1 cell phone and 1 cell phone charger; 1 generic Palm Pilot (with which I must keep a clinical trial-mandated headache diary) and 1 charger; 1 remote control (to adjust stimulation levels), 1 charger for the stimulator and 1 charger for the charger.
- At this point I finally feel like I can return to most normal activities without doing damage to any incisions and internal wiring. The only thing that I can’t but really want to do is sit in a movie theater for more than an hour. It’d probably be OK if I brought a giant stack of pillows. So, if anyone can find me a bootlegged version of The Devil Wears Prada, you will be rewarded handsomely.
- Today I was allowed to take my first legal shower (I’ve unknowingly bathed illegally twice) today, and it was the happiest 20 minutes of my life. The stimulator’s handbook says nothing about showering being dangerous, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was sort of like walking into the shower with a hairdryer.
- Many, many apologies to anyone who’s tried to hug me during the last 14 days. I wasn’t stiffening or recoiling in horror from you involuntarily. I was just protecting myself from certain pain. It’s much better now, but if you feel the need to encouragingly pat me on the back, could you please aim for my knees instead?
- I didn’t see them in the operating room but my surgery was apparently filmed by a camera crew from somewhere. For all I know it could’ve been a local news station or the Discovery Channel. My name and face were never used in the segment, but if somebody sees a familiar torso on TV sometime soon, maybe it was me.
