Me again

It’s been a while since I last posted. Familiar story huh? So I’ve been back at work now for 4 weeks. It’s taken all of the energy I have to make it through each day. Hence the inability to find the stamina to write another post. The first two weeks were certainly the hardest, but even then I did feel my stamina increasing. At four weeks, I’m doing pretty good I think. I still don’t spend all 6 hours at my desk in the office. I tend to perform 1-3 hours of work at home from the couch. Though all of that depends on the day. Some days I find myself able to be at the office for 5+ hours; certainly a task I couldn’t even fathom the first couple of weeks. On top of going back to work, I started back to school two weeks ago. I did not want to get any further behind in my MBA, and I figured going to class two nights a week might also help increase my stamina. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right?

I’m still unsure of when I will return to working 40 hours a week (currently I’m at 30). Right now I feel overwhelmed with everything. Perhaps what would be best is slowly ramping up to 40 hours. Maybe I should start working an additional 30 – 60 minutes each day until that feels comfortable, and pretty soon I’d be back to 40 hours.

My company has provided me with an incredible chair advised by an ergonomic technician. I’ve tried other chairs since, for conference calls and such, and I’ve noticed that I’m in a lot of pain after sitting in those other chairs. Whereas I can manage nearly 6 hours in my specialized chair. Unfortunately, the worst thing right now are headaches/migraines that I start to experience around 1pm. I’m not sure why they are so regular. Caffeine, Tylenol, do not seem to affect the headaches much. I just try to get home quickly and lie down.

I have also noticed that I continue to have some difficulty retaining facts correctly. When recalling the information I need, I tend to have the basic premise correct, but some of the details totally wrong. Perhaps this has something to do with the medication? I have been weaning myself off of them. I’ve just started taking only Tylenol in the morning (rather than a prescribed pill) and I only ever take another pill if I have class or some other event to go to in the evening. I’m looking forward to the day when I don’t need something in the morning to relieve the pain and stiffness. I did try that one day to see how my body would handle it, apparently not well.

Oh and in case you wondered, since I have been asked this frequently, though I experience persistent pain and stiffness in my back, I believe it is strictly related to just having gone through very invasive surgery. The pain in my back that I used to experience prior to the surgery has been relieved. This is an incredible comfort. Granted some of the post-surgery pain I have may never relieve itself, but at this point, with a lot of recovery time still ahead, I am hopeful that it will.

So I apologize for the lag in posts, but hopefully it is somewhat understandable. I’m just really exhausted these days. At least I’m getting stronger at the same time. That is comforting.