Originally posted on Facebook on August 23, 2013
Are you allowed to laugh during the early days of recovery? or will it hurt you? This is a great question, because when my sister had her heart surgery a few years ago, she wasn’t allowed to laugh or cough, because of the way they did the procedure. Of course, my coping mechanism is to make people laugh, especially myself, so I got some nasty looks from the nurses… But my sister made it through just fine, even though she had to hold her stitches from time to time. I don’t have many restrictions, as my procedure will be done laparoscopically. That means that there will be 5-6 small incisions made, awesome tools put through those little holes, including a camera, and only a minimal amount of abdominal muscle will be torn. It means the recovery time is days, not weeks. And that aside from heavy lifting for a few weeks, I can laugh, cry and sigh all I want. There is actually little breathing exercises I have to do every day (deep breathing and coughing) to make sure blood doesn’t clot in my lungs. Coughing is a lot like laughing, right? People who have had the surgery complain mostly about gas being trapped in their shoulder joints. They have to blow up your abdomen in order to do the surgery, and the gas has to go somewhere; they do get most of it out. But it’s the little gas bubbles that take forever to dissolve that cause people crankiness.
Fortunately, one of the best fixes is getting adjusted. And fortunately, I have a great chiropractor.