Day 6: Today, I did a reflection on my surgery experience. Before the surgery, I had lots of ideas about what's life like after the surgery by reading journals from lots of other people on the forum. I thought I'd go through the similar experiences. However, it turned out that my experiences are so different from others.
Before the surgery, I thoughts:
1. I'll have a ton of pain like level 9 or 10 after surgery.
2. My brain won't work on any work or planning on my laptops.
3. I'll probably need to take oxy and possibly develop the risk of addiction.
After the surgery, what happened so far is that:
1. My pain level is 2-5, not like some other posts stating VERY PAINFUL on the forum.
2. My brain could actually work on pretty complex cognitive tasks just a few days if not a few hours after the surgery (especially with the help of just one cup of coffee)
3. I didn't even take oxy even after I moved to the hotel for more than a day and night.
Those experiences above are good surprises. So far, I really just had one small negative surprise, which is the passing out twice on the days right after surgery because of the surgery damage to my body. This negative surprise is very short-term and also positive too because I learned the value of life. Before I passed out, I took life for granted because I had never really passed out in a hospital with a nurse asking me "are you with me?" before. It felt like I was dead for a few seconds in a movie or something lol The passing-out experience taught me how amazing life is. After I recovered, the passing out reminded me that life is limited so we must do what matters to us. What truly matters to me is to find a wife to build a future big family. I also realized that all the seemingly huge discomfort/stress from my job is as tiny as a little star in the universe after you passed out and survived again.