Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since Jaimi's surgery. Last week at this time, she was still fighting dizziness, taking pain medication about every 4-5 hours, waking up a couple times at night hurting and needing help repositioning. She could walk some, but if she was up and moving (even in a wheelchair) for more than an hour or two she was exhausted and in pain and would sleep for at least a couple hours after.
Today, if you can believe it, Jaimi was up and around from noon til 8:15 tonight. She took rest breaks now and then, but the things she did in between were things like rock wall climbing, riding on chair lifts, riding the alpine slide and a zip line. She didn't need to bend (more than she does for sitting, anyway), lift or twist for any of them and her only other limitation that the surgeon gave her was to limit herself by her pain level as that is your body's way of telling you you're overdoing it. Every time I saw her today she said she felt fine and she wasn't hurting. She's pretty exhausted tonight and I won't be at all surprised if she's pretty sore tomorrow, and whiny about it to boot, but I was very impressed with her endurance today. Learning to stop before you have worn yourself out is an extremely hard lesson to learn, even when you haven't just had major surgery.
Her incision still looks good and the steri-strips are starting to peel up on the edges. She's anxious for those to fall off - she says they itch and sting - they have some pretty good adhesive on them. Her pain is getting better as well, she's not requiring her meds as frequently.
We are still up at Snowbird and got some day passes for the activities they offer here today. We all had a lot of fun doing the things Jaimi did as well as a ropes course, mechanical bull, bungee trampoline and swimming. We have been spoiled by Sunni and Josh's hospitality and willingness to share their vacation with us. :)
We head back to American Fork tomorrow, probably in the late morning. We need to get back to school shopping done and get ready for the younger 3 to head back to LC on Friday with their dad. I'll drive and meet him half way and trade off the kiddos.
Jaimi's follow up appointment with Shriner's is scheduled on September 1, about a week earlier than I had thought they would want to see her. We will probably head back to LC on the 2nd or 3rd. In between now and then we'll need to practice how to pace her activity levels to be able to handle school full time and not need days to recuperate from one day at school. Hopefully she'll surprise me with her resilience. :)
That's great that she is doing so well!
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