Tomorrow it will be six weeks since I’ve donated. I am back to work with a pretty normal workload
at this point. I don’t have any pain at
all. The dull ache inside has
disappeared, there is less swelling around the main incision, most things have
returned to normal. There are two
things I do notice, and maybe they are related.
One is that I still have limited energy. For example, I’ll go for a walk for an hour and when I come in and sit down my body
feels like I have been hiking for three hours…way more tired than I should be
for that amount of exercise. I also find
that I feel very weary a lot of the time. That means that
most of my free time is spent lying on the couch… I’m a pretty get up and go type of person,
and like to do lots of stuff. Well
mostly at home nothing is getting done. The
second thing I notice is that I am absentminded. I keep forgetting things! Of course everyone
is forgetful, but the rate at which I am forgetting things is much higher than
usual. Appointments, facts, stuff I’m
supposed to be doing. So the lack of
energy is in my brain too!
I am not too worried about all this, I see it all as part of
the healing process. The nephrologist
said a 6 to 8 week recovery, and so I know my body is still recovering. Physically,
mentally.
This weekend I chatted with the friend who had a nephrectomy
two weeks after me, and his recovery is very different than mine. He didn’t take any pain medication after the
surgery. Nothing! And he feels good now. When I look back at my husband’s nephrectomy,
I think his pain was more severe than mine; he had a really hard time getting
up and walking because it was so painful, and he couldn’t do stairs for a
while. That wasn’t my situation at
all. But he was back doing physical
labour at work within a month; and there is no way I could do anything like
that, even now. It’s hard to predict how
your body will react, you just have to
see what happens.