I had made the decision before the dawn broke that I was going to make no effort to do anything. I would not try to get dressed. I would not try to wash my hair (or rather would not try to get Neil to wash my hair). I would not try walking the dogs (yes, they were due back today) and I would not try to do anything in the kitchen.
Today I would allow myself to rest. Neil had chosen to stay at home and look after me, and I would let him.
Then I remembered I had an appointment at the hospital that afternoon for my check up to see that everything was working properly. Well, at least I could rest during the morning. Then I remembered, the dogs were due back this morning. I decided a PJ day of rest wasn't going to happen.
My left shoulder was very uncomfortable, but not painful, but then I was still taking regular painkillers. I was conscious not to move my arm much as it had been stressed to me on a number of occasions, I needed to give everything time to settle. I couldn't stretch out, raise my left arm above my head, use it to push up or lift anything - today none of that would be a problem. I felt very delicate.
My first challenge was breakfast. I found I couldn't raise my left hand to my mouth, breakfast would be a one-handed affair. Afterwards, I decided I needed to find out clothes I could manage to wear.
After some help from Neil, I managed to get dressed. I had some very stretchy vest tops which were easy to wear and I could let the left strap fall down off my shoulder, which actually acted as a reminder not to move my arm too much. I had been told not to move my arm behind me, as you do when putting your arm in a sleeve. All this was to prevent the risk of displacing the leads, not a common issue but something that could happen. I really didn't fancy a repeat of Wednesday's procedure so taking care would not be difficult. On the other hand, I was to take care not to keep my shoulder too still, or that could lead to a frozen shoulder.
A couple of hours later the dogs were back, my brother and sister-in-law brought them over and stayed for a while. The dogs seemed to sense I wasn't well and kept their distance.
Later that afternoon we got ready for my hospital appointment. The first challenge was getting into the car. I decided to sit on the back seat behind Neil so the seat-belt would go across my good shoulder. My dressing was due for changing today and I had left it thinking that they would check it at the hospital, and then it would save me having to do it. When we got there I was told that they didn't change the dressing as it wasn't a sterile environment (but this is a hospital) and I would be better doing it at home. The check was done by putting a small unit on top of the pacemaker, but on top of my clothing, about the size of a computer mouse. This would transmit signals from my pacemaker to the monitor. Neil could see the monitor and was able to watch as they made the pacemaker speed up, I could feel my heart beat faster. Then they slowed it down, and speeded it up again, before putting it back to normal.
They told me that at the moment it is set to the factory settings and they will check it again in a couple of times over the next 6 months, after which they will have enough information to be able to decide what rate the pacemaker should be set at to suit my normal heart rate.
The told me how important it was to make sure I kept the wound area as clean as possible and watched for any signs of infection, as it could be really serious if it got infected with the pacing leads going straight into my heart, any infection could pass straight to my heart as well.
So now I have 2 major concerns, how much or little I move my arm and watching out for signs of infection.
At least for today, the appointment was good and everything is working as it should.
Back home, I change back into my PJ's to start my PJ day, letting Neil look after me while I rest. But first we had the task of changing my dressing. I didn't want to look at it until Neil had looked and could tell me how good or bad it looked. I watched his face as he removed the dressing and I didn't see too much shock on his face so I decided I would be brave and take a look in the mirror.
The whole area was yellow from the iodine and the scar was bigger than I expected, although some of that was probably due to the swelling, and the stitches didn't look very pretty at all. Neil put a fresh dressing on and I could then get on with my PJ day. I had to keep the dressing on until Sunday when I was to take it off and leave the wound open to the air.
Tomorrow's target is hair washing. I normally wash my hair every day and tomorrow would be 4 days since it had been done, I was desperate for clean hair.
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