Teressa's Photos

Here I am at 7 months post surgery! I feel like I have turned another corner in my recovery, I just hope I don't regress. Monday morning, after a very full weekend, I woke up with energy. I felt better than I've felt in some time. This continued all week. Thursday I had my second shingles vaccination, so Friday evening I didn't feel well and had a slight fever. However, I woke up before my alarm this morning with nothing more than a slightly sore and warm arm. I feel energetic.My hair loss has gone back to a normal level, I'm sure I'll be back to peak hair in a few months. It has been nice to have it short this summer. I've been embracing my late 90s Meg Ryan hair.My scar is looking about the same. I'm so fair skinned that it will take a long time for the redness to fade.Pain wise I have my normal pains, especially where they disarticulated my rib. I don't think it seated properly or popped loose during the night of hell. I have an odd lump there and it is the source of most of my chest pain. Week before last I did have an episode that I went to the chest pain clinic over. Most of my pain is on my right side, but I had very sharp left side pain. Honestly, it felt like I was stabbed with an icepick just left of my sternum. It was different and intense, so I had someone check me out. Fortunately, it was a Precordial Catch, which is either a muscle spasm or nerve flare up in the space between the ribs and heart.My GI issues are still about the same. I still throw up a few times a month, but experience daily nausea. I also have healed enough to identify the upper right abdominal pain is not related to my surgery. I missed a day of work recently because I was so nauseous I couldn't function. I don't have the bacteria that causes ulcers, and my celiac test was a weak positive, indicating that I do not have celiac disease. Next steps are a gallbladder/liver function scan (HIDA), which fortunately I've found out is a nuclear test, so no worries about my contrast dye allergy. I'm also scheduled for an upper endoscopy in a few months. Honestly, I hope we figure out what is wrong with the HIDA scan. While the ultrasound of my gallbladder didn't show any stones, etc, it doesn't check the function of the gallbladder. (Yes, I'm still convinced it is my gallbladder.)I'm finally reaching the point where it feels like it was worth it. I can foresee that mythical time when "I feel better than I've felt in years."