I slept well for almost an hour and then woke, so here I am in the middle of the night again.

Yesterday I posted online that I had taken a baby walk to the near corner of my block, 4 doors up, and that I would be doing dishes and a load of laundry.

Several people chastised me for that, saying the laundry was too much. It was a load of mostly socks and underpants and a few flannel pajama pants. All lightweight stuff. Someone suggested reaching into the washer and using tongs to move things from washer to dryer. I didn’t do that, but I already knew to be careful with the reaching and lifting, moving only a few items at a time.

I just reread my printed instructions, limiting me to light activity and not lifting more than 10-15 pounds for 1 month, and then to proceed from then on as I felt comfortable. I can handle doing a load of laundry now and then as needed, as long as I don’t lift heavy loads all at once. I won’t be pulling out the vacuum for a while, or scrubbing the bathroom, or mopping the kitchen. I can use the light broom to brush the leaves off the front ramp, but not the push broom to get the leaves off the whole concrete pad. I can do light cooking on the stove, but I can’t be lifting the cast iron Dutch oven for soups or the heavy skillet that I normally use for pork chops. I obviously cannot be lifting the 32qt tamale steamer that I use for steaming the yarns, since that is well over my limit. I think I do have a fair grasp of activity limits, and I’ve laid plans for not starting back to regular dyeing until after the holidays.

There’s actually two issues at play here: (1) soreness from the surgery, and (2) letting the internal stitches heal so the muscle fibers can grow through the mesh. The soreness will ease in a few weeks, maybe less; I don’t know. I do know that mild activity helps the soreness to dissipate and improve more quickly. The patchwork mesh could take several months for the muscle tissue to firmly take hold, and it could take several months of healing since there were apparently multiple places where they saw a repair was needed, so I will continue to be careful in my activities and how I lift and move things.

While people were commenting about my activity being too much, I did comment that while I can’t afford to hire any household help right now, if someone wanted to send weekly housekeeping I would not object. I mean, it’s okay to (mildly) fuss at me about my activity levels and tell me to take it easy, but living alone as I do there are some things that simply must be done and there’s no one here to do it for me, so what am I do do? I have a hand truck for taking the big trash can to the street, but I can’t let the trash pile up for weeks, just like I can’t let the laundry pile up until there are loads and loads waiting to be done.