I passed the two week mark since surgery- yay! I do have to say that those two weeks were hard.

I was sort of expecting that I would be having very little pain at this point, but that isn’t the case. It’s sooooo much better now, but my incision is still quite painful. It’s healing nicely, though. I saw my regular care provider last week who said everything looked beautiful, which is really relative when talking about a 6-inch incision in your abdomen ?

I think it must be the nerves healing that is causing the pain now and that particular pain isn’t relieved by ibuprofen.

I am walking much better. Still slow, but getting a bit faster each day. I walked about half a mile yesterday in two segments, which was tiring, but went well. Sleep is also good. My insomnia has taken a break and I’m sleeping through the night, which is great. Probably because I get tired out so easily. This is my tired face

I was disappointed when my doctor said no biking for 6 weeks, but to be honest, I don’t even want to think about that now. I’m sure after 4 weeks I’ll probably be chafing at that restriction ?

My hormones seem to have settled down a bit. Much less weepy now, thank goodness.

I go back in for a postop visit tomorrow for another check in. Just taking it one day at a time and I’ll be good as new before long .

Mid July, who can believe that? One nice thing about having gardens is that it gives me something to look at when I slow walk my way outside. I made the mistake yesterday of walking too far since I decided I wanted dinner at the food truck fest last night. We parked a couple of blocks away and I was exhausted and overwhelmed by the people and heat and all that. At home, it’s nice and quiet and I can insulate myself. When I was in the hospital, John watered my gardens for me. It’s the first time he has ever really had to do that in a long time and I have more garden. He said to me something to the effect of “you have a *lot* of garden”. 😀 Oops. I don’t think so.

Anyway, on to the blooms. Going from left to right along the front of the house. Petunias:

These were extras from my tippy pots and are just in a container by the garage. So pretty.

I let my snapdragons free seed and they have moved into the very front of the garden bed this year. There are a ton and they are just starting to get a few blossoms on them.

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My liatris:

The blue balloon flowers going crazy:

In front are the pink ones, which are a bit taller. I need to research if they like being moved because I would like them behind the blue ones if possible. I noticed a pink one ready to pop last night:

And sure enough, this morning there it was:

I think this is my favorite shot of the garden this year so far. Total happenstance. It was a little breezy and I quick lowered my phone to take a picture and it came out great.

Cheyenne Spirit coneflowers:

I’m officially calling these my favorite coneflower. I have a bajillion seedlings, too, so they are going all over the place this fall.

Turning around from here, this is the view back where I came from:

I just love looking at all the pretty colors. It’s a cottage garden, that’s for sure!

We got a new toy today. I ordered this on Prime Day.

It’s a cordless electric mower. With my whonky shoulder, I can’t do the pull cord on our gas mower. Solution? Electric push button start. Now we aren’t on fossil fuel, either. It’s soooo quiet – John is out mowing right now and you can’t hear it. We actually had a conversation while he was mowing. Of course, I can’t use it because of surgery restrictions for a few weeks, but I can’t wait to try it (garden dork). Now to see if a full charge will do the front and back yards.

I’m seeing more bees now. Not as many as last year, but now that there are even more flowers, they are coming around more:

Go bees! I hope everyone stays cool this weekend. We will be in the AC and watching the Tour de France with me biking vicariously through the riders on TV.

So it’s a week since my hysterectomy and I’m progressing pretty well. Last week was a little rough with sleeping issues. I had to sleep on my back (which I hate) with my legs on pillows because lying fully flat is painful. It was very similar to when I herniated my back. Now I can sleep kind of on my stomach, which makes it easier to sleep.

My uvula (the hangie down thing in your throat) is ulcerated from surgery likely from the ET tube. My throat was very sore after surgery and I can still feel my uvula touching the back of my tongue, which is really annoying. My throat isn’t sore any more, but it’s taking a while for the ulceration to clear up.

My doc said that I would be slow and tired and that if I overdid it at any time, I would pay for it. She was correct. I’m just really surprised at how little it takes to overdo it. We went on Sunday to visit family because I was feeling pretty good. Just sitting upright for several hours without doing anything was enough to overdo it. I had to lay down with an ice pack on my stomach and take more pain meds when I got home.

I have a 6 inch incision on my lower abdomen, which kind of freaks me out a little. All the stitches are on the inside for the muscle and my skin is held together with glue. I am following all precautions so I don’t dislodge the glue. I can bend and such surprisingly well, but as I said above sitting upright is what causes more pain. So, I have an excuse to slouch all the time on the couch 😀 Ice packs have been really helpful, which I didn’t start using until a few days after I got home. I don’t know why I didn’t use them before. My abdomen is pretty swollen and I hold it to give it support when I’m getting in and out of chairs or standing up. I’m living in nice stretchy capris leggings and loose tops. I made the mistake of trying to put on a pair of shorts with a zipper and it was like they were 2 sizes too small.

We were out today for a bagel like a usual Wednesday, only driving and not biking or walking.

Walking is very slow and I actually have only walked around the yard pretty much. Movement is exhausting. I have to rest after taking a shower LOL. But, it’s getting better every day. I’m going to try walking up the street later this week and see how that goes.

Emotionally it has been a little hard. My doctor said that my hormones would be a little out of whack as my ovaries would be shocked from my uterus being gone. I find that I get weepy for no reason and out of the blue. I hope that doesn’t last for too long.

John has been a perfect nurse. He has either helped me water the garden by carrying the hose behind me or watering it himself. Along with cooking most meals, grocery shopping and generally pampering me. As I feel better, it’s going to be harder to have him keep doing the things that I will be restricted from for the next 5 weeks.

Poor Pixie has had access to my lap curtailed. I can’t have her sitting on it just yet. Not to mention that with her weighing 11 pounds, I cannot pick her up for the 6 weeks of recovery. She isn’t terribly happy with that and has pretty much been by my side a lot of the time laying on a pillow.

The first two weeks will be the hardest and I’m halfway through that, so yay! I did say to John today that I’m really tired of my stomach hurting. By August this will all be behind me.

I’m considering the garden part of my recovery therapy. I can’t do much yet except slowly walk around our house, but I can enjoy. Weeds are already coming back, though LOL. They will have to wait a week or so. I feel like watching me do things is like watching a sloth as I move so slow to avoid provoking pain. It probably is a little funny to watch.

Anyway, it’s coneflower season now. July is always a busy month in my garden. Seems like the majority of my plants bloom from now through fall.

Cheyenne Spirit:

I just love all the colors in the same plant. It’s festive and happy.

This is supreme cantaloupe:

I moved this one last year, so it’s still trying to get settled in. It’s not as big as it used to be.

Balloon flowers:

Can’t you almost hear them pop open?

Annabelle hydrangea:

This is my earliest blooming hydrangea. It’s about 3 feet tall now, I would guess. I’m hoping it gets another foot or two taller than this, but it might not because of the dry shade it is in.

Finally put some plants in an area in the back of the house that is filled with white stone chips. I can’t stand the chips and didn’t want to have to dig out the entire bed and put new soil in, so I just removed some and added extra soil so I could do something with it. I planted some Japanese painted ferns with impatiens:

I’m not a huge fan of ferns, but these are really pretty.

Asiatic lily:

You can see wire mesh in the background protecting another lily that a rabbit has gotten at. We have the cutest baby bunny living here. So, so cute, but annoying at the same time. He can eat all the lawn weeds he wants, but stay away from my flowers!

This is my goose neck loosestrife.

This is spreading like crazy! I’m going to have to remove about half of it this fall. It apparently really likes this spot.

Another plant that has proliferated well is the daylilies:

A perfect example of the right plant in the right spot. I plunked down 5 plants about 3 years ago just to put something in and they took off. This is the very back corner of the sun bed.

Bee balm has arrived. I have a new dwarf one in my bird feeder bed:

Then my big one, which is 4 feet tall, maybe 4-1/2:

Now is the time to start watching for sphinx moths and hummingbirds.

Also more butterflies now that the butterfly weed has bloomed:

It’s hard to just walk around the garden without stooping over to pull weeds. I’m actually looking forward to getting back to that, oddly enough.

No biking for the next 6 weeks (5-1/2 now 😀 ), so other than the napping that I’ve been doing, I guess I’ll be getting the biz ready for the holiday season. And enjoying the flowers.

I’m typing this from my phone because of computer issues, so forgive any formatting issues.

Thank you so much for all the well wishes and support. I had a lot of anxiety about the surgery, but I wanted to go in being the best patient possible to help with a good outcome.

I was doing okay until the preop needle sticks didn’t work and I had to get stuck 3 times. That combined with all the strangers coming into the room asking questions (so tired of giving my date of birth) and I started crying. The nice nurses brought John in a little sooner than planned for comfort. Everyone was really nice and I felt kind of stupid, but whatever.

I woke up from anesthesia and immediately started throwing up. Having just had abdominal surgery, that hurt like a m*******er.

I was pretty dopey most of the day and don’t remember much from visits. I had a nerve block done, but apparently it didn’t take very well and we had trouble getting control of my pain.

The surgeon said everything went well and my uterus + Fibroids weighed 1-1/2 pounds! The biggest one was the size of a pomegranate. No wonder I had problems.

I was tired of being woken up every couple of hours for vital signs and meds, and another blood draw at 4:30 am. Jiminy.

Wednesday I was doing better. Not much appetite , but I met enough milestones to get discharged.

It’s good to be home, but getting used to doing everything really slowly is hard. No choice because moving hurts. John is taking good care of me, though.

There will be a blooming post tomorrow!

Riding hasn’t been as comfortable for me this year and that has limited how far we go, but I was up for a last longer ride before surgery. We wanted somewhere different, so we put the bikes in the car and took them to the Zim Smith trail.

This is a nice path. About half is fine cinder and half is asphalt. It was really nice weather as the hot and humid weather finally left and it was a perfect riding day.

A lot of other people had the same idea and there were parts of the path that were pretty crowded, but we found a quiet offshoot to take, which ended up being a long climb. Maybe that is why it wasn’t crowded 😀

20 miles in the book and a nice last pre surgery ride for me. We stopped for lunch at Wired Cafe, which was a cute little coffee shop in Ballston Spa. They roast their own coffee there and have a light food menu.

We had some lunch and then I had my eye on dessert. A baked cinnamon French toast donut topped with a sugar cookie with maple glaze.

Yum! If they sold just that cookie, I would buy a dozen. John had a really good chocolate chip cookie that made him a happy man 😀

Tuesday is surgery day. I have instructions to drink gatorade or powerade the night before and the morning of surgery. It’s supposed to help with a faster postsurgical recovery. I have the lemon lime flavor:

I’m hoping this goes and stays down because my throat wants to lock up with sports drinks.

I will be so glad to get this over with and start recovery. I’m not sure if I will get a What’s Blooming done this week, but I will try. Hoping to be home Wednesday, but a second night in the hospital is a possibility depending on how I feel (I’m planning on one night 😀 ). See you on the flip side!

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! it was really hot here. Summer sure is in full swing. I actually had to water the garden with the hose for the first time all year – can you believe that?

People say I have such a green thumb, but I struggle with plants and areas like many people do. This is an example:

This is my calycanthus bush. I planted it 4 years ago and it was going gangbusters growing with lots of blooms. For some reason, it is dying this year. It starts with stems and looks good, then they wilt and die. I don’t know what the problem is. I cut it way down in hopes that new growth will come out, but it seems to be doing the same thing. If it doesn’t turn around, I will take it out this fall and put in a different shrub.

I have new alliums this year. Of course, I cannot remember the name of this one and it isn’t on the sites I usually order from (so likely out of stock), so hopefully I can find out the name.

You can see all the snapdragon sprouts in the background low down, too. I get soooo many of those. These are really cute!

The drumstick allium are blooming in front. I split up my big clump last year and just put bulbs randomly around the garden all over, which is fun because I forgot where I did that and get surprised.

Those are nestled in the not-yet-blooming balloon flowers.

My shasta daisies continue to come into flower:

They are so happy and fun 😀

In early spring, the garden is really purple shaded. Now it is more white:

A couple pops from the Cheyenne Spirit coneflowers:

The new bed for the bird feeding station is shaping up nicely. The snapdragons are blooming back there:

I love this color, too.

The new yarrow has flowered as well:

My first time growing yarrow. It’s native to pretty much everywhere in the US and great for pollinators.

This weekend is heavy duty weeding in all the garden beds. My surgery is next week, so I need to get the beds really cleaned out since I won’t be able to do that for a bit.

Have a great weekend and stay cool!

First, thank you for the comments and messages about my surgery. They are much appreciated. I’ll be glad in a couple weeks when I am on the other side because now the waiting is hard and I just want to get it over with.

The garden is resting a bit now after the flurry of blooming. The next flowers are revving up to go, like the coneflowers.

Fair Bianca is still going. When we had heavy rain, so many petals were on the ground, but there were still a lot of buds ready to open:

Kind of a messy shot there, sorry Fair Bianca!

The later alliums now flowering.

That’s Star of Persia.

I can’t remember the name of this blue one, but I love the color.

These white petunias are ones that I picked up at a big box store. They really are doing fantastic.

That little green shrub is a small azalea I planted in the spring. Hopefully that will reach about 4 feet tall.

This is the back side of the shade garden as you approach it from the house walkway:

I have a *ton* of violets. I just let them grow mostly because they fill in empty spaces and make it green where I have trouble finding something else that works.

That hosta is huge now:

There is Lady’s Mantle on each side and I’m going to have to move it this fall as it is getting covered by this hosta.

One of the cheeriest flowers in my garden are just opening now – the Shasta daisies!

They are so much fun. Once all the plants open, I’ll take a picture of the whole shebang.

This weekend will be spent with some riding and trying to get the long list of things done that I want to get done before my surgery (but likely won’t finish LOL).

So I had mentioned a few weeks ago about having fibroid issues. This all started a few years ago. I had a heavy pressure feeling in my lower abdomen and crampy pains more days than not all the time, so I talked to my OBGYN about it.

She did an ultrasound and found fibroids (noncancerous growths in and around the uterus, for those who do not know what they are). Fibroids are very common in about 70% of women, but not everyone experiences any symptoms from them and the symptoms can be varied. Of course, mine have to be weird and are growing on the outside of the uterus instead of inside, so I have what she termed “bulk symptoms” of pain and pressure, which is due to their size and locations.

We had discussions about treatment options, which are rather limited, I have to say. There is watching and waiting, myomectomy (which is surgical removal of the fibroids) or hysterectomy. There are some drugs available that help shrink fibroids, but they are only to be used for 6 months at a time and they will only shrink them about 30%.

Since I was 49 at the time these were found, we opted to watch and wait hoping that I would go through menopause and they would shrink after that. But first, I had a uterine biopsy – much fun – to rule out any possibility of cancer since we weren’t going to do anything about them. And then I just dealt with the symptoms.

They have progressively become more and more annoying for me and I’m showing no signs of going through menopause. I can actually feel one of them when I lay on my back. I had another ultrasound done in April and the fibroids were bigger – not smaller. I have 4 of them and the largest is the size of a tennis ball. That one sits on the top of my uterus and is likely the one causing the pressure. This spring when I got back on the bike, I can really feel them when riding as I am leaning forward slightly. Plus, when riding, it pushes on my bladder, which sucks. It makes me want to not ride as much or as far – and you all know how much I love my biking. That was kind of the final straw since it is really affecting my quality of life.

So after more discussions, my doctor recommended a hysterectomy since the fibroids are growing at my age instead of staying the same or shrinking. Medications to shrink the fibroids will probably only shrink them to the size where I first noticed them, so I don’t want to bother with that. They will shrink after menopause, but it takes time for that to happen, which could be two months or a year, but no one knows, and I’m so over it right now. She didn’t recommend the myomectomy because of the size and also that new fibroids can form and I would be back to where I started. Since I’m not having children, a hysterectomy is probably the best choice for a permanent solution. I do get to keep my ovaries and their associated hormones, so I won’t actually know when I hit true menopause after the hysterectomy.

I alternate with some days feeling like “what am I doing – major surgery – what??”, which are those days where I don’t notice them much. Then other times I think “get it out already” because they are so bothersome. It’s time to get my regular life back. My surgery is in about 2 weeks. Then I have restrictions of no biking or lifting more than 10 pounds for 6 weeks. Wahhh! At least I will be back on the bike for fall weather riding, which is my favorite.

The hardest part for me will be trying to be a model patient and listening to John when he tells me to cool my jets during recovery 😀

Back to another Friday already. Seems like winter crawls by and then summer flies past before you know it! And happy first day of summer, by the way.

It’s rose time around here. Fair Bianca is the bush that sends out the most flowers in a season. It blooms pretty much from now until fall, although the flushes are smaller later.

We had heavy rains yesterday and you can see how the mullein and foxgloves got beaten down behind the rose bush. Wah!

Othello is another of my David Austin roses. It didn’t bloom too much the last couple of years, but I have been feeding it in the fall and spring with special rose food and it seems to be paying off. More blooms this year and bigger:

Some Enchanted Evening:

These blooms are lovely:

Very fragrant as well.

My new bird feeder garden bed is coming along:

Lots of baby plants and a mixture of pollinator friendly annuals and perennials. The birds are having a great time with the new feeders, too. There was a baby downy woodpecker being fed suet by the parent, which was so cute!

My new bee house that was a birthday gift.

You can just see some climbing vines starting to reach up. I’m hoping the flowering vine will attract somebody to the house.

I’m glad I got a picture of this peony before the rain. It has been flattened, but here is its memory 😀

The shade garden is getting more lush. I’m really pleased with the progress this year.

The heuchera have been blooming for weeks now. I’m surprised at how long the blooms are going.

And the astilbes are just starting. My white ones always come early before all the others:

This year I finally put something in my cement planters out front:

Many garden centers have these premade arrangements that you just drop into a pot and call it a day. That’s what I got. I just put a couple of bricks in the bottom to raise the level and dropped the pots right in.

And for someone who says she doesn’t like petunias that much, I sure have a lot of them.

Big campanual alba blooms:

Leaning just a bit. They are very tall and could use some kind of staking or caging, I think.

Since it is pollinator week, I’m ending with a pollinator picture! This is one of the only foxgloves left standing because it is leaning on the pole the umbrella is hanging on:

And it had a visitor:

Hooray for the bees!