Setback

Shortly after I wrote my last post, I started feeling more and more pain. It got so bad that I eventually called my doctor's answering service, and they told me to come back to the hospital. The Darvocet that I was taking for pain was just not effective, and I was not getting any rest. It took a while, but eventually they gave me some strong pain relief drugs through an IV that helped me be able to relax. They did a couple of precautionary tests to make sure there was not something more serious going on, then they sent me back home with stronger pain meds.

Words of advice: Before surgery, discuss with your doctor his/her philosophy of pain relief. I didn't realize going into this that my doctor holds a more conservative philosophy of pain relief, preferring instead to encourage deep breathing and limited use of mild pain relief. I literally had to beg for medicine, and it was always discouraged and sometimes not given at all. I truly feel that this conservative philosophy has slowed my healing and directly resulted in having to go back to the hospital a second time, thereby racking up more bills and unnecessary tests.

I don't have enough medical knowledge to form an opinion on what pain relief philosophy is best, but I will tell you this: using more aggressive pain meds today has allowed me to relax, rest, and sleep.