Journey to Recovery

Before I had the surgery, I planned to write daily. Full documentation was my dream! However, life in recovery is different.   Recovery in the hospital mainly involved slow movements, eating and a lot of sleeping.  So between writing and eating and sleeping, I gave in to the latter.  Recovery at home is no different so I ended up jotting notes only on days when I felt like I reached major milestones.

Generally, the image below depicts how I felt like in my recovery journey - every day is an attempt to stand up straight. 

Image from Google Images

12 Feb 2020: Day 1 post-surgery

I woke up feeling so tired.  I was knocked out from 2pm the previous day until around 10am today. My husband said I look pale and took a photo of me so that I could see myself. I was yellow! Gosh.

The gyne came to check in. We were told that it was a successful operation - she took out all 5 of the fibroids, checked my ovaries which were good, and advised me to try sitting on bed for a few minutes the first day, sit on a chair the second day and walk around the room. 

I was starving but to be safe, I was advised to take clear liquid first. If I don't throw up, I could have solid food for lunch.  

First food intake post surgery: bland clear soup and tea with apple juice. 
I am obviously sad. 

Fortunately, I didn't throw up so I started another highlight of my post-surgery journey - feasting on hospital food.We were told by a friend that food in Mt E is excellent and that they have lobsters on the menu. Interesting I thought. Im used to hospitals having bland food but I guess this one is different.  My gyne said I could eat anything so I did. 

Lunch was lobster thermidor. You see the radical shift in my facial expression?  
Yes, I think I attribute a large part of my overall pleasant hospital experience to the food. 

I tried sitting up on my bed today but I couldn't and felt dizzy so I stayed in bed the whole day. My abdominal area felt sooo heavy. I realized how important core muscles are.  I still had my catheter on so peeing was not an issue. I also had something on my legs to aid blood circulation.  

The massager

Sleeping was a challenge. The nurse would frequently come in to check my blood pressure or give me meds.  I felt like I was woken up every two hours. My left arm was also swollen from the drip so they had to move it to my right arm. The injection was painful but it had to be done. 

13 Feb 2020: Sat on chair

Today, my doctor took off my drip and the catheter so I tried sitting on the chair. And I managed to do it!   It was hard of course. The bed had to be adjusted and my husband had to assist me. My core was numb so I had to use my arm to hold on to the bed railing and lift myself up to a sitting position while my husband had to move my leg one after the other.   Even sitting on a chair, I had to use my arm power to slowly sit down.  It's a good thing that I couldn't feel the pain on the wound when I move so that's one thing less to worry about.  It only hurts when I cough and when my husband makes me laugh. 

Me sitting on a chair with a proud smile on my face

Lunch today is grilled salmon. Hairstyle courtesy of the husband

Dinner is slow-cooked aged black angus beef short ribs.
I felt like I was in a hotel, not a hospital.  I usually skip the snacks because the main meals were already very filling!

It's also funny when everyday, nurses would ask me if I've passed gas or passed the motion. Interesting how those seemingly mundane things could actually say a lot about the condition of the intestines post-op.   

In the afternoon however, I was having a low-grade fever so the doctor advised me to stay. She is more comfortable about us being here. An infectious diseases doctor also had to check on me to make sure that it is not COVID. 

14 Feb 2020: Valentines day in the hospital

I managed to walk unassisted today so I opted to have breakfast by the window. 

View for breakfast

Menu for breakfast: Lobster porridge! The food is really insane

My mom came over to visit. She has allergic cough so it was difficult for her to come in.  The hospital doesn't allow anyone who have cough or any flu-like symptons.

Today was continuous observation of my fever.  Someone also came to teach me how to breathe - yes, how to breathe.  The clinical term is chest physiotherapy.  I had a bit of difficulty breathing  because of mild atelectasis - a common complication from surgery. Apparently, when the body is under general anesthesia, even the lungs are so relaxed that it sometimes forget how to do its job. In my case, a small portion of my left (or right?) lung collapsed so I had to do some breathing exercises to wake it up.  Good thing I didn't have pneumonia.  

15 Feb 2020: Shower day!

I woke up feeling tired but my temperature is back to normal.  I thought we were going home but we were told to stay one more day because I didn't satisfy the 24-hour no fever criteria for discharge. 

Dr Dharsh changed my dressing. My husband saw the wound. I saw the photo.  It was huge! My gyne used tissue glue instead of stitches so the wound was neat. It was like one straight line. 

Lunch was steamed lobster.
Yes, I did try all the lobster dishes they had on the menu

Dinner was lamb shank. I've gained so much weight from my hospital recover

I showered today! I felt so much refreshed but in the afternoon, I felt my fever coming back.  I felt hot although my temperature was only 37.2.  

My husband went home to rest. He hasn't slept properly in the past 4 nights. 

16 Feb 2020: Discharge day 

It's time to finally go home! 

Not before having lunch though.  This is Wagyu beef rendang

On the way home. Another test of my arm strength. I had to use my arm to slowly get on the car while my husband moves my legs inwards.

17 Feb 2020: The day after discharge

I've missed the lobster meals, the nurses and the heated toilet bowl in the hospital but it feels good to be back home.  

It's hard to go to the toilet though.  I had no bars to hold on to when sitting down on the bowl or getting up so I need my husband for support. And at night, when I have to go and pee, I have to wake up my poor husband because there are no nurses who could support me.  

When sleeping, I could only lie on my back so it tends to become uncomfortable after some time. 

19 Feb 2020: Out of the house

I went for a walk at the playground down the block today. Assisted by my mom and my husband, I walked 3 rounds then went to the provision shop across the road to buy coconut water.  That was a short walk but I felt my core muscles waking up. I also felt a bit tired.

The body is amazing. A week ago, I couldn't even sit on my bed because my waist and pelvic area felt so heavy but now, I can walk outside of the house. 

Having this surgery made me realize how important our core strength is. My core muscles were under anesthesia (as of the rest of my body) and was resting for a long time. So now, every little thing that requires core strength magnifies the amount of core muscles needed to do it.  Wiping the kitchen counter for example is not easy.  Or pouring milk in a glass. I couldn't even put the pan on the stove or fill the pot with water!

24 Feb 2020: 2 Weeks post-surgery

Woke up. Had breakfast and felt sleepy after so I went back to bed. 

29 Feb 2020: Today is day 18 post-surgery.

Hooray, my wound is dry! The doctor removed my wound dressing and gave me the go signal to shower without covering my wound. The only thing I have to do to the area is to apply antibacterial cream around it once a day, preferably in the morning.

It could just be psychological but after my doctor's visit, I felt a lot better. I felt that I could walk more so I did.

22 Mar 2020:   I managed to wipe my legs on my own! 

When I shower, I would usually wipe my upper torso and ask my mom or my husband to wipe my legs and my feet because I couldn't bend down.  But today, I tried placing one of my legs on the bed and bend a bit and managed to reach my feet! Yay!

23 Mar 2020: Last day of MC

Except for the discomfort in my lower right chest which went away after doing several rounds of deep breathing, I feel perfectly fine now especially in terms of mobility.  I can do simple household chores such as cooking, washing the dishes, and vacuuming. I still dont dare to bend though until I see my gynae on the 25th.  Tomorrow, I am back to work but with the COVID-19 situation, I will be working from home which is a good thing.  I am glad that I don't have to commute more than hour each way to work which I am sure would tire me out.

Overall, it has been a smooth healing journey. The pain were mainly caused by me coughing or laughing but other than that, I didnt feel anything. It was of course uncomfortable as it felt heavy and I couldn't bend down.  I would just sit down or sleep whenever I feel tired.  Walking everyday, even for only 10 minutes was helpful. I'd be impatient sometimes, especially when it will take me and my mom or husband 30 minutes to reach the park because of my turtle pace walking when normally, we would be there in 5 or 10 minutes. But I guess, the recovery process teaches us to let nature take its course, let the body heal when it's ready. It couldn't be rushed. 

My MC is done but Im far from being fully recovered. I feel like it would still take months before I could fully recover. My abdomen is still numb. It's weird when I touch it and I don't feel anything. My body has definitely changed.  It gained some battle scars. Proof that it is strong. 

First day high

Today was the first day of class for General Linear Models.  First day was on discussing the class requirement, introductions, and a review of statistics.  Im glad I sat in Dr Chua's class which clearly explained the basics of inferential statistics and now allows me to follow what's being discussed in class. Also, that class sort of reduced my fear in numbers so that's good. 

Also, my years in the Centre where everyone knows and talks quanti, listening to quanti presentations and reading quanti journal articles provided explicit examples of how tests are used was extremely helpful. 

It's very different from my stats class in college where I don't even remember what I learned. I only learned about SPSS, chi square, t-test and ANOVA when I wrote my thesis. 

The lab is going to be demanding. I have to prepare for that and be strict about my schedule.

Anyway, so far so good. 

Class pic for 611

Hello

 I have been attending orientation sessions for new students for the past few weeks and this week has been the busiest so far with almost daily sessions of knowing the students in the department, knowing people in the department, and knowing international students from different departments in UCalgary. 

Today, I woke up at 8am to join a social event organized by the Soci graduate students. The group played a game of jeopardy, with drinks on hand.I just woke up at that time so my brain was still a bit foggy. I had a couple of errors (ooops) - quanti/quali error was a result of not reading the question properly, ninja turles was simply me guessing and not knowing the answer really, and the t-test - I still feel that our answer was correct since the question specially said measuring differences in means, not variance. But oh well, like what Carieta said, we're not sore losers. I think Sg's competitive spirit is rubbing on me. 

 The senior cohort seem to have good dynamics judging by the way they throw banter at each other. I am excited and nervous at the same time to be part of this group. 

Some of the graduate students in the department enjoying a game of Jeopardy

Goodbye...

 Yesterday was effectively my last day at work. I start clearing my leaves today until 23 October this year then Im officially jobless! 

Being with CFPR for 6+ years has been enriching. I've learned so much about teamwork, communications, management, friendship, politics, paying forward, and the list just goes on and on. This is actually my longest stint on a job. 

Saying goodbye is also kind of weird because firstly, we have been working from home since Mar and the lack of daily physical interactions reduced the work relationship into emails and videocalls which I feel takes out a bit of the connectedness that's present in physical interaction. The sort of connectedness that makes up workers and teammates as humans and not just workers. Online work in a lot of ways limits interactions into work-related matters and reduces the unplanned/unstructured interactions that bring about possibilities for friendship. I have cultivated friendships at work so I felt like saying goodbye virtually was not saying goodbye properly. 

Secondly, there has been several pseudo send-off meals with small groups of colleagues/friends and a virtual send-off from the Centre so it felt like there has been so many organized send-offs already to the point that my actual last day is sort of anticlimactic and repetitive. I had to send a goodbye email though for me to formally mark a closure in one aspect of my life.

Lastly, my actual last day is in October so in a way, I am still a staff and therefore saying goodbye at this point is too early? Hahaha I dont know. It's just so weird I guess because it doesnt fit the usual scenario, just like how 2020 is so weird. 

Send off gift from Nastassja which captured what I felt about the past 6 years of working in the Centre

Life in the Time of COVID-19: Im Officially a U of C Student!

U of C entrance (grabbed from Google)

So I'm officially returning to graduate school this fall! I won't be seeing the maple leaves turn yellow or red or brown though since all classes will be web-based.  Instead, I will be a night owl, attending classes at midnight until the wee hours of the morning. 

The application and acceptance process was pretty straightforward. It was COVID that was not. Just like any other aspect of our lives that was affected by COVID, my return to grad school became precarious because of lockdowns.  Universities and government offices were closed so I could not process the documents that I need.  Fortunately, the University of Calgary is very accommodating so they allowed me to enroll even without receiving my transcript straight from UP yet. 

So today, finally, I'm officially enrolled! 4 modules, 4 days of classes, 14-hour time difference and 8,000+ miles apart. 

Next, work on that student visa. 

Life in the time of COVID-19: Focaccia Sourdough

I made focaccia for James' friend today and since I was in an experimental mood, I tried using my starter instead of commercial yeast. Ok, I also baked because Im so frustrated with what's happening back home. Maria Ressa was convicted of cyber libel. WTF. I channeled my anger into something more productive.

I used a scaled down version of the recipe I found online. Mine was:

• 200g BF
• 100g APF
• 240g water
• 30g starter (1:1:1)
• 2% salt 

I usually do autolyse in my sourdough breads so I used it also for the focaccia. Here's what I did.

905am. Autolyse. I mixed all the flour with about 220g of water and let it rest for 45 minutes. The dough is a bit dry but it's ok. We'll introduce more hydration with the levain later. 

I saved about 20g of water for the starter later. 

950am.  I combined the starter, water, and salt. I mixed them together before combining it with the autolyzed dough. This is the most tiring part since it's quite difficult to remove the lumps from the dough. Imagine mixing a dry dough and a soupy-like starter. 

1030am Stretch and fold 1. There were still sump lumpy dough here so I did a bit of kneading. Just a bit. 

1135am Stretch and fold 2

1205nn Stretch and fold 3

115pm  Split and fold 

115-335  Bulk rise. Do not touch the dough at this point. Wait until it doubles in size. It was quite warm this afternoon so it rose fast. the original recipe required 4 hours for the dough to double in size so you have to account for this when you are in a colder climate

340pm I drizzled some oil in the dough here and transferred it to my baking tray.  I know this is focaccia and doesnt require shaping but I like the technique used in making sourdough so I just did it :)

4pm. I preheated my oven at 220C and left the tray that I will be using inside. I was trying to apply the theory behind oven spring here - the hotter the surface of the tray/stone/DO/skillet, the higher the oven spring will be. 

At this point, I also dimpled my focaccia and inserted slices of garlic into those dimples.

430pm. Bake the dough for 30 mins at 220C.  Every oven is different so observe how your bread looks like so that it doesnt burn or undercook.

Ahhh it looks so good!

Look at those dimples!

And those crumbs! 

Life in the time of COVID-19: Another take at Sourdough bread (13 June 2020)

I haven't baked for quite some time and being in a new FB group of sourdough bakers pushed me to give it another go. I also learned that some people used sizzling plate as a substitute for cast iron skillet or dutch oven. My sister has one so I borrowed it. 

I used Foodgeek's sourdough recipe and scaled it down using baker's percentages which my husband helped me understand.  So here it goes.

• 70% bread flour
• 30% whole wheat flour
• 70% hydration 

70% BF, 30% WWF

840pm. Autolyze.
Dough seems drier than my usual doughs but considering that I still have to add the starter, this actually looks like it's going to work. 

950pm. Add salt and Starter
It looked like my pretzel dough accident. I thought of adding water but stopped myself from doing so. The dough, after resting, will become softer anyway. 
Also, when I did the float test, my starter sank to the bottom of the glass but floated after some time. It also looked like flour soup. It smelled well but not too many bubbles. It's something that I've noticed after changing my starter feed from Bob's Red Mill APF to the regular Redman BF. 

1022pm. S& F 1 (before)
Not as easy as the other ones because it's drier. Tempted to knead it but managed to stop myself from doing so.

S & F 1 (after)

1056pm. S & F 2 (before)
It looked like a regular dough at this point. It's very tight so Im not sure if it is going to puff. It didn't look like it has a lot of air/bubbles in it. 

S & F 2 (after)

12mn S & F 3 
Dough seems to be a bit more wet and soft than when we started but still no air. I don't see any bubbles. I stopped using the wet towel as cover. Just used cling wrap.
 

1240am S&F 4 (before)

S & F 4 (after)

110am pre-shape (before)
I thought of doing another S & F but it was too late so I went 
ahead to pre-shape it.

Pre-shape (after)
Another indication that this may be working.  Managed to shape them into a ball without deflating and even incorporated a bit of tension into them!

Final shaping

I was already happy when I reached this stage. The dough didn't stick to my hands and I shaped them the way I wanted to.  1 batard and 1 boule

8am Pre-heat oven, tray, and sizzling plate for 30 minutes at 240C. The sizzling plate has a  bit of rust on it so I put several layers of baking paper. Now Im worried that the heat from the sizzling plate will be insulated by the baking paper and wont benefit the dough.

I also took out the batard from the fridge.  The dough spread sideways I guess because the bowl was not oval shaped to begin with. The dough was supposed to be oval but the bowl was round.

835am Scored the bread and sprinkled some water.  When I placed it inside the oven, I saw some steam coming out from the dough. Yay!
Baked it covered for 20 minutes at 240C. I used 2 deep cookie pans, one on top of each other

 

855am. First 20 minutes is done and I had a good oven spring!!! It also looks like I will have an ear. This one looks very promising!  I removed the cover for the next 15 minutes of cooking and reduced the temperature to 220C

910am. Batard sourdough done! Woohoo! It looks so good! And it has a nice hollow sound when you knock the bottom part of the bread. It also has a tiny ear :)

Top view of batard sourdough

Side view 

915am. Now for the boule sourdough. I scored it straight out from the fridge. Since it's my sister's birthday tonight, I scored her name on it.  I might have sprinkled more water than the dough needs. You can see that the dough is very wet. I also cut it deeper as I wanted it to rise higher. I didn't see any steam when I placed it inside the oven. But let's see. 
Again, 20 minutes at 240C, covered.

940am.  This is after the first 20 minutes of baking. It looks good but it didn't have an ear. Time to put it back in the oven. Baked it for 20 more minutes, uncovered at 220C.  At 10am, I checked it and saw an ear developing! So even if the baking time is up, I left it inside the oven for 5 more minutes. 

1005am. The finished product! :)  It was a success! With a burn on my right arm. 

another angle 

On the left side is my frozen sourdough from my 2nd try. On the right is from my 4th try

My two beauties

Cut cross-wise. I got some pretty decent crumbs 

Sourdough toasties with avocado and scrambled eggs