Coincidentally they used ketamine as the anesthetic and for the first few hours after arriving home the wound barely hurt at all. Then the effect wore off and it started getting very bad. I decided to do my best to avoid taking painkillers because I wanted to do everything in my power to avoid ripping the stitches. If that happened my pain would likely become even worse than it was before the surgery and I could not handle that. With my mind cloudy from the painkillers I kept making very stupid movement decisions like sitting on a couch with no easy way to stand back up without using the stitched stomach muscle area. Plus it just makes you way less careful with movements in general. I was given 27 opiate pills for the pain and only took 6 of them over the entire recovery process; pretty impressive I think. As a result, though, at times the pain was right on the verge of unbearable. I kept telling myself I can handle ridiculously high temporary pain levels, it's the thought of worsened chronic pain that terrifies me.
It took me a very long time to make it up the stairs to my room. I almost couldn't do it even with my dad helping me. Risking going back down was out of the question during recovery so I was essentially trapped in my room. Ordinarily this wouldn't be so bad but my computer chose to stop working at the worst possible time. It added a lot of stress to an already shitty situation and I couldn't easily fix it because I obviously can't bend down to look at it. Thankfully I had family around who could follow my instructions to try and figure it out. Eventually my dad brought it to a computer store for me and they fixed it but by that point I was already mostly recovered.
My stomach was also very uncomfortable because I desperately needed to go to the bathroom but could not because any pressure use could easily rip the stitches as well. The first night after the surgery was incredibly awful to the point where I'd rank it as one of the worst experiences of my life. The doctor had warned me the pain would be increased due to having EDS and I certainly believe that. As you know I vape every night to fall asleep and could not do that because I was perpetually groaning from being in so much pain. I also sneeze a lot as a consequence of constant sleep deprivation from being awake so long and that first night post-op when I sneezed it hurt my wound so much I started crying. I had to deal with increased leg pain too because I couldn't get therapeutic massage until I was able to lie on my stomach again.
I showed my doctor the picture below after taking the bandage off and he said it's very swollen and there's lots of trapped fluid but didn't think the hernia recurred. Overall it healed well but we'll have to see what happens when I become more physically active again. I still haven't tried working out, for example.
I went to see the surgeon a couple weeks later for follow-up and he agreed that it's healing well. He said there's a lot of hard scar tissue which is a good thing. There is, however, a concern for the future. My muscles were sutured together with knotted stitches. He said me being a skinny guy could be a problem in this situation. In skinny people the suture can protrude into the skin causing irritation and pain. For less skinny people it would just painlessly go into the fat instead of the skin. If this issue happened to me they'd have to open me up again to fix it. At least it would be local anesthetic only, not an entire new general anesthetic surgery. Below is what my new bellybutton looks like. I did request they keep it an innie, and they sort of did. I like the old one better but what can you do.
Next up on the chopping block was my second Tedx Talk. It was at York University again and I essentially gave the same speech as last time. The speech was received extremely well but there's just one problem: They didn't fucking record it again! Last time they recorded everyone's but mine because I switched spots with a guy as a favour to him when he asked (as you may recall he had an early flight the next day) and it confused the videographer. This time no one's speech got recorded and none of the people in charge can explain what happened, it seems like the people who were supposed to have the camera never showed up. They were aware that the only reason I was doing the speech again is because I wanted the recording yet they didn't even tell me it wasn't going to happen until I went up and asked right before the even was about to start. There were other speakers and since my sleep is unpredictable I requested to have the ability to go either first or last depending on when I woke up. They granted that request and I ended up going first.
There was also the issue of speech timing. Last year there was also a 13.5 minute time crunch to give the speech but I was less practiced so couldn't go maximum speed even if I wanted to. By this time I was very well practiced and so had the ability to go a bit too fast and did so. At one point before the event they asked if I could keep my speech under 9 minutes and I said absolutely not but I promised it wouldn't go over the 13.5 of last year. I was determined to keep that promise and did so but the problem is no one else did. The last guy to speak gave a horrible show-offy speech about spending a month in Colombia with his buddies he started a company with. He told us it wasn't a good financial decision but that they did it because they could and then encouraged everyone else to act that way, as if it were that easy. Normally I'd just daydream during that kind of speech but it went on for almost 40 minutes! I can't believe I rushed my speech for that kind of crap. Rushing made me lose a lot of passion so at least when I record the damn thing myself I won't have to worry about that issue. So two years in a row I got screwed over for trying to be a good guy. The first time by switching speech spots with the guy who begged me to do so, and now by keeping my promise to keep the speech relatively short even though in the end no one else did.
Just like last year many people in the audience came to speak to me after the speech to tell me how much they enjoyed it. A couple of people asked to join the blog group these posts are from because I mentioned them during the speech so they'll be reading this (hi). Someone who works for Sheridan college said they're posting my speech online to show their students. Best of all, a couple of amateur filmmakers approached me saying they'd like to make a short documentary about me and EDS. We're recruiting family, friends, others with EDS, and potentially even doctors to be interviewed about myself and my condition. They also agreed to film the Tedx Talk speech for me so I'll post that on Facebook when that happens soonish, hopefully within a month.
On a random freaky note, when I take an extra quetiapine pill in the morning to fall back asleep after waking up too early I usually collapse after standing up to go to the bathroom or something. I feel faint and lose all control of my movements, like a really severe POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) episode. There's always a few second delay of it happening after standing up so I usually have something around to grab onto to break the fall but I need to be really careful when taking that extra pill somewhere that's not my room.
Coming up any day now will be me trying the previously mentioned ketamine nasal spray. If I can absorb it better than the pills then it could be life changing. There's no absorption issues with the infusions because they go directly into the bloodstream but since they happen in the morning it's not going to help much for sleep. If I take the nasal spray right before I want to fall asleep and it gives me at least a good partial effect of the infusion that could be a huge deal. The ketamine infusion doctor has never prescribed the nasal spray version before but my dad found a colleague who has and so she sent my doctor the typical dosage amounts and just the other day my doctor asked for our pharmacy information so he can send in the prescription. I'll have my hands on it any day now!
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