| So, the first morning I woke up in Jodie�s house, I started the routine I would follow for the next month. After one month the schedule would require me to move up one size in the stents and go down to dilating only three times a day. I would wake up at around 8 to 9:00 every morning to do my first dilation. After that I would go upstairs to eat some breakfast. After breakfast I would hop in the bathtub for the first of two daily baths. I was born in the sign of Cancer, which makes me a crab, and totally in love with water. Taking a nice bubble bath every morning and evening was actually a treat for me. This is another area where Jodie and I vastly differ. Even though she is also a crab, she never found taking a bath as soothing as I did. After taking a nice hot bath I would get ready to present myself to the world. One more dilation followed that before I left for work. By the time I did everything in the morning I would usually be ready to hit the road between noon and 1:00. It would take me about 40-45 minutes to get to my business, which was a haul considering that my normal drive to work was only 10 minutes. I stretched the speed limit every day in order to take off a few minutes of having to endure the discomfort of sitting on a rubber donut in my car. Once I got to work, I usually spent the afternoon catching up on paperwork and tending to the daily tasks of my business. For the first few weeks I had a difficult time sitting or standing for long periods of time. I always found myself lying on my back once or twice in the afternoon in order to relieve some of the pressure I felt in my groin. After I had all I could take toiling at work, I would get back in my car to drive to Jodie�s house for the night. As soon as I got back to her house, I would dive into another dilation session and then attempt to score some dinner. After dinner I would slide back into the bathtub for my nightly soak. Jodie�s schedule was fairly unpredictable, so I never knew when she was going to be home. At some point in the evening we would find an hour or two to sit down to talk about our lives. We really didn�t see each other that much throughout the day, but when we did it was usually quality time. I would always finish the night off with my last dilation and then head to bed, which was rarely before midnight. Yeah, it was a full-time job doing all that in one day. Of course, I never cheated at it, especially when you add in the extra effort it also took to apply the host of ointments I used and the douching that was also required. I felt it was paramount for me to stick to the things that Dr. M�nard recommended. It was a tough routine to follow everyday, because there were certainly times when I wanted to skip a step or two. It all paid off in the end, and if I had to do it all over again, I would be just as diligent. I believe in being very thorough, to the point of being obsessive. There is no doubt this type of recovery is one that certainly requires patience and willpower. Going into the surgery I tried not to underestimate the amount of time and effort it would take for me to give the healing process a fair chance. I found out it was every bit the ordeal I thought it would be and then some! <<BACK<< >>NEXT>> |