Rough night and morning, TMI, really I mean it very TMI…
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Reached the OMG WTF Was I Thinking point last night and so far this morning.

I’ve had a persistent pain at the top of my groin ever since the surgery. I’d just assumed it was a combination of bladder pressure (it’s difficult to pee for 2-4 weeks post-op), plus some irritation from the catheter.

But it’s still here even after they removed the cather yesterday morning. I’m beginning to think it may be post-surgical pain itself, or maybe I pulled a muscle trying to pee. I’ll ask about it when the nurse comes by later this morning during her rounds.

Regardless, it was uncomfortable enough that I was waking up about every hour. By 2 a.m. I was thinking about taking one of the sleeping pills provided — and probably do so tonight — but was worried it would cause me to oversleep when I needed extra time to my first solo dilation, which is a bit of a complicated procedure.

First you lay a plastic sheet down on the bed (to prevent the bed from getting dirty), along with the blue plastic strap that you lie on, and use the help keep the dilator in place.

Then it’s a trip to the toilet, and clean the wound with hibiscrub, a fairly harsh antiseptic — it’ll burn the skin if it’s used too much or left on too long.

All set to get started, when suddenly I feel the need to poop. Which I’m not gonna ignore since it’s the first time I’ve pooped in over a week (the laxatives I took the night before finally kicked in). Thank Maude I did, because it definitely cleared out a lot of room and made the dilation less awful than it was.

But now back to around round of the hibiscrub, plus another antibiotic cream that you need to apply whenever you pee or poop.

Find the tray containing yet another disinfectant that I’m supposed to apply afterwards. Knock tray, spilling about half of the disinfectant, although thankfully into another part of the tray, so can reused, just more awkward to do.

Finally….. We’re ready to go. Got the latex gloves on, got the mirror positioned so I can see what I’m doing down there, got the condom on the dilator and the dilator lubed up.

Insert dilator, OMFG it hurts. Don’t know if I’d been on the residues of painkillers yesterday, but today it’s definitely not fun at all. Work it in slowly, slowly, until I’ve reached the full 7 inches of depth. Now the clock officially starts, I’m supposed to keep it in for 30 minutes, but I can only manage 25 before the pain is too much. Which means I’ll pay for it during this afternoon’s dilation, but hopefully I’ll have painkillers this afternoon.

Get cleaned up, which is also a bit of a procedure. You use a vaginal syringe to clean things out (leaving lube inside you causes bad things to happen), and additional to the lube being flushed out, there’s usually bits of blood clots and dead tissue that come out too. Messy.

Finally get myself cleaned up. I’d been told it’s a good idea to simply order room service the first day or two back from the hospital, but my body was craving protein, and I wasn’t taken by the room service breakfast menu. Since my room was next to the elevator, I decided to risk it (too much walking early can cause damage that needs to be fixed), and got to the breakfast buffet in the lobby. Which was a mistake. My appetite evaporated and in the mirrors I could see I looked like death warmed over. Won’t be doing that again tomorrow.

And so now I wait in the room for the nurse to come and do the daily inspection, hopefully will be able to get some napping in before I have to do the next round of dilation at 3.

It’s gonna get better, it’s gonna get better….