I do this Recovery Thing very badly.
First of all, I hate pain medicine. Dilaudid makes me woozy and dizzy, hydrocodone makes me itch, it's too early to take naproxen or ibuprofen, and whiskey is ten miles away and thus totally out of the question. But I *hurt*, so I end up taking the Lortab as it's been prescribed, especially after Notamus decides that his fourteen pounds needs to be on my lap right the hell now. And I itch, and it doesn't help much, and I'm still stuck with this cat on my tum.
Secondly, I have entirely too much energy of entirely the wrong sort. I can't lift anything that weighs more than five pounds. That makes laundry difficult and taking out the trash impossible, and made folding up the futon today something that I considered, then rejected. Don't even ask about the gymnastics it took to get Max's food bowl off the porch and into the house.
I suppose I could edit the stuff I've written for Scrubs, but if there's anything worse than my writing when I'm on painkillers, it's my editing when I'm on painkillers. All of a sudden, major arguments go away and subject-verb agreement seems not to matter in the least. I become one of those people who insert's apostrophe's rand'omly into word's. Worst of all, I start adding things that, to my sleep-deprived and drug-addled brain, sound funny. It's like SNL in the mid-nineties.
Thirdly, I am very, very, very grumpy after surgery. Maybe it's the constant itch; maybe it's the inability to *do* much, or maybe it's the cat walking on the keyboard, but I get foul-tempered and out of sorts. I've been reminding both the boys today that "cat" is only one letter away from "hat" and that it won't stay too hot for fur headcoverings forever. It's unfair; they're actually being very sweet, if a bit clingy, but I'm taking my temper out on everything from bran muffins to ceiling fans that need to be dusted.
(Speaking of cats, Ibid showed up this evening earlier than usual and wearing a cute little pink collar with a bell on. She has a new home, hurrah! She acted quite pleased with herself and declined food, but accepted pets.)
And, finally, *you* try to be serene and relaxed when your belly is so bloated you can't breathe deeply. I have some remarkable bruising that's only just now starting to show up, as well as some fantastic marks from the tape they used on the operating drapes: I'm allergic to adhesives, apparently. My right shoulder is sore, even though they obviously worked hard to press all the CO2 out of me prior to closing me up.
It's a good thing I own ten empire-waisted dresses. Der Alter Jo asked hopefully if I'd be able to make Marcus Wallaby, MD's birthday party this weekend, and I had to respond, "Dear, I can't even wear pants. Only sluts run around without drawers, so the answer is no."
I guess it's a good thing my social life is in shambles. I'm in no shape to be pretty, popular, or charming just now. I can go to bed, sleep three hours at a stretch, and then get up and surf Craigslist for project cars and nobody'll be the wiser.
Bah. Lortab. Bah. *blam*