Day 8 - Odd, niggly sensations.

I woke early with a new sensation in my chest. This was the first time I'd felt any sensation other than from my wound area. It was a pricking sensation deep in my chest like someone had stuck a pin in me a couple of times. It settled for a while and then happened again. I still have the feeling of a lump in my throat which has been there continually since before the operation. 

It feels like the swelling in the muscle where the pacemaker sits has finally gone down and I can now feel the pacemaker unit quite clearly. It's the first time I've been aware of anything specific, previously it's just been an overall shoulder ache. 

I still worry about what my arm gets up to when I'm asleep. I try to keep it from moving too far from my body or above my shoulder by piling pillows around me, but these sometimes fall off the bed and I'm sure some of the early wake-ups have been caused by my arm pulling on my wound as it moved further than it should.

Once again I got up in the night and came down and got settled on the settee where I feel more secure that my arm will behave itself while I sleep, and I manage to get a couple of hours before the alarm goes off to start the day.

I wasn't working today, my brother arrived last night and we had plans to spend the day together. We decided we would visit the local Butterfly House. There are various things to see that are outdoors, but equally plenty to see indoors too.

We spent about 4 hours there and, although I hadn't taken my big camera with me, I did want to take some photos of the owls, meerkats, butterflies and other animals and decided to use the camera on my mobile phone. I soon discovered that it wasn't as easy to use my mobile one-handed as I hoped. Firstly, I couldn't raise my left arm high-enough to get a good angle to see what I was taking a photo of, secondly, I have to take care not to use it too close to my pacemaker - it needs to stay at least 6 inches away, so looking at what I have taken was a constant issue as I have always held the phone in my left hand prior to the operation and it is taking some re-training to keep using it with my right hand.

Eventually, Neil took pity on seeing me struggle and took over taking the photos. By the time we returned home, my whole shoulder area was aching and uncomfortable, I had overdone things and needed to rest. For the first time in 3 days I reverted to taking painkillers. 

Another lesson learned? I hope so!