1 Week Post-Procedure

Oct 12-18th.

I'm not going to lie, the first week after the procedure wasn't a walk in the park.  I wasn't one of those patients who felt immediate improvements as soon as they awoke, but I wasn't one of those patients who had major disabling symptoms to start with.  Yeah I have MS and at the worst of times my quality of life can really suck, but I still have my mobility & independence: two things that many people who get this procedure don't have.  Remember, I went into the procedure feeling really well health-wise.. the best I had felt in over a year due to the diet changes I made.  So if I had no major symptoms present before the surgery, how was I going to tell if things had improved after the surgery?  What I've learnt it that the little changes can take time.  But just like anyone would, I wanted to notice a huge change for the better, and I didn't.  I didn't notice any change upon waking or the few days that followed.  I was trying to be as positive as possible without being too optimistic.  I had gone into this journey being very open-minded and I wanted to come out of it in the same mind set.  Of course I would be disappointed if I saw absolutely no improvements, but this was obviously too soon to tell cause my body was still in recovery mode.  I had to have some patience when it came to healing.  All I could do was follow doctors orders in getting as much rest and water as possible.

Back in Winnipeg, my neck and chest were quite sore from what I had just gone through. I could turn my head to the left no problem because my left side wasn't treated, but turning to the right was sore and painful.  My azygos vein in my chest was the worst.  It gave me what I can only describe as the feeling of heartburn, even though I've never had heartburn in my life.  It was so worrisome that I ended up calling the clinic in California to ease my mind.  I left 3 messages on 3 different phone lines and 3 different doctors got back to me within, let's say, 3 hours!  They all told me that this sensation was quite normal as my veins had basically just gone through a beating.  Also, I Googled "possible side effects" of the blood thinners I was put on and they sometimes can give a person heartburn too.  I felt better with all these answers!

The thing that I was worried about the most and would be worried about for the next few months are blood clots.  It's my understand that it's a concern after any surgery.  Since my veins were stretched from the inside-out and the valves were broken, the body recognized them as being injured.  Just like a cut on the outside of your body, red blood cells would accumulate in that area until it considered the body healed, forming a clot.  It's when a clot breaks loose and starts traveling through your veins, or when there's an excess of red blood cells that get stuck in the area treated that it may cause a blood clot.  The blood thinners are just a precaution to thin out my blood as much as possible in case my red blood cells over-clotted the area.

All I can really do is be diligent with taking my meds.  I also read that if I was to get a clot, the first thing any doctor would give me are blood thinners.  Since I'm already taking blood thinners, I just have to have faith that they're working and stop stressing about a clot. There have been 3 instances since the procedure that I felt like a clot was moving inside my body.  When I've felt it, it's always been in my chest and neck.  Once before bed, I got that heartburn feeling again.  It was uncomfortable and hurt to cough and yawn.  I went to sleep and the next morning the pain was on my opposite side.  I could feel that it had moved overnight (which is a good thing) and within 12 hours the discomfort was gone.  I've never been in excruciating pain; it's always just been discomfort.  Any longer than 12 hours and I'd probably go to the E.R just to be safe.  Fingers crossed that that won't happen!

So like I said, the first week post-procedure was tough but rightfully so.  I could feel that I needed time to heal so that's exactly what I was going to do... and "healing" just so happened to come in the form of getting pampered on the couch!

H. xo