Day 30 - A Whole Bunch of (Unrelated?) Stuff

(NOTE: If you are seeing this on Facebook, please go to my blog - chiachatter.blogspot.com - to see my whole post. I don't make my points in the first paragraph, which is all that shows up on my Facebook page :).)

Yeah, I've talked about the depression with which I am struggling, that popped up and caught me unaware...or maybe creeped up...but which I really started noticing about a week ago. I wouldn't have thought this would have been related to my surgery but it apparently is...and there are other things that are different.

(NOTE: Parts of this are personal so if you are squeamish stop here. I just want an honest story of my fundoplication experience for others who may be considering this procedure, or who may experience the same thing(s), plus maybe someone can help me understand all of this who has been there done that.)

My skin: I am itchy. Not just where the skin is STILL dry after that awful mess under the binders, but nearly everywhere. I could spend my entire day scratching. I'm using a wonderful cream that works wonders on my hands but the itching isn't necessarily related to dryness of my skin, and some of the itching feels like it is way beneath the skin, where I can't scratch hard enough to reach it.

My hair is limp and has no body, no life, no nothing. Like when I was a teenager and it was always oily and only looked nice for about an hour after I washed it - only I don't even get that hour, now. It is dead.

My personal scents, just the smell of my skin, my breath, etc. are all different. I don't recognize these various "natural" scents that are so unnatural now, that aren't me...

I have areas on my skin where it is turning to thick, textured elephant skin. Seriously. In several places. It is hard, it is thick, and it has a definite rough, hide-like texture. Where is THAT coming from??

As do many fat women, I struggle with candida in the folds of my skin, but have been able to control it for years with a routine that has kept it in check: daily showering followed by towel drying followed by air drying with a blow dryer set on cool and high followed by a liberal dusting of Caldosene Powder, which has no corn starch (yeast loves to feed on corn starch!) but has 15% zinc oxide which I've never found in any other powder. But now it is out of control, and acting differently than it ever did. The skin is splitting open and bleeding and very VERY painful in several areas, and there are other changes as well that might be too graphic for this blog. But it is worse, and it is different.

I now have fingernails for the first time in my life - literally - since I have bitten them since I was a toddler. I never ever had nails. But after the surgery I didn't want to ingest fingernails and cause pain so I stopped biting them. They are making me nuts, I hate the feeling of them, the tapping on my keyboard and the mistakes they are causing...but see paragraph 4 above: They are great for scratching so they get to stay although I will keep them very very short.

There is also some pain, not enough that it gets more than a passing notice, but it is frequent, across my chest/rib cage, and into my shoulders. I read that this is quite common, having something to do with nerves and diaphragm repair and whatever. It isn't a big deal..but it is one more thing that is so different...

Looking back I see that most of these changes are skin-related, but why? I don't get it, and it all only serves to make me even less of who I was before. There is almost nothing about me that I recognize anymore. I'm more puzzling than whining, no matter how the text reads, but I'm fairly certain that all of this strangeness isn't helping my feelings of detachment and strangeness in my own skin.

But I'll work it all out, one way or another. I have a lot of years to enjoy the intended results of this surgery, that I am already enjoying, the ability to eat without reflux and pain and all the rest of it. I still can't believe I haven't had these things in a month, when it had all been part of my life for so many years...I'm so so so thankful for the opportunity to have this done, and am sure I'll get excited about it again once I get my head fixed.