Sheree and Don,
Glad to hear you are finally on "the road" we (surgery patients) are on. Forward progress made me feel better. I had rehab for six weeks following surgery with every day/every hour of exercises at home. My husband works at home and every hour he would stop his work, and take me outside for walking on the sidewalk and then walking and turning on the lawn, then in the evening he would shut off all the lights and have me go through the walking and turning around exercises. My greatest challenges now are still soft surfaces, dim lit areas, standing w/o wobbling with one foot in front of the other. The exercises I did at home seemed really ridiculously simple, but oh so necessary to get the other side of the brain to take over the balance. I do know from experience that the first time with anything is always the hardest and worst. Try to remember that as "a voice" inside your head tends to creep into your mind telling you "it will be awful." but ignor this as the second, third, fourth, etc. try tends to be easier.
As for the headaches, yes, I did have 24/7 for approximately 2 months, then they began to taper off and I now am down to one ibuprofen on occasion. I am 2+ years post op surgery. In the beginning I did not like having to take mega doses of ibuprofen (acetaminafin did nothing) and by the time I got to where the pain was tapering off and my dosage was becoming smaller I decided to see how long I could go w/o taking anything, bad decision. It's best to keep ahead of the inflammation game. Best to be able to "read" the starting symptoms of head pain before it gets way out of control and you need larger doses for longer period of time, when a smaller dose before the pain really sets in would serve you better. My signs were flashes of light, incision/scalp tightness, excessively dry eyes, stomach upset, irritability, ear fullness, etc., and when I saw these as signs I would give it more time to show itself and at the first sign of headache I took medicine. Too much stimulation leads to brain fatigue. Kids chattering, wife asking questions, searching your brain for words in response to questions, watching movie and trying to concentrate on the plot, something as simple as showering and thinking about other things at the same time creates "brain overload" and best to keekp this to a minimum. This is also known as multi tasking and reading other posts you will hear of their difficulty with it. It will get better only if you keep the "stimuli" to a minimum, oh and wear ear plugs too as noise is a stimuli. This head pain will go away, just rest, sleep and know it's the ridiculously simple things that serve you best towards a speedier recovery--hope this helps. Now rest--that's an order!
Creating single minded focus with everything, movies, conversations, simple day-to-day tasks, projects around the home, will help tremendously as well as, one day at a time. It's a whole new you, a whole new world, nothing ever stays the same!
