Mopping the floor after a c-section

Yes, I confess ... I was mopping the floor only three weeks after a c-section. Worse still, I was down on the floor scrubbing. I know, I know - I should be taking it easy. But ...

I feel faintly guilty admitting it, as if I have been given an undeserved bonus, but I think I had the easiest c-section ever. Immediately afterwards I waited for the spinal block to wear off and the pain to kick in, and it never did. The only pain relief I needed was paracetamol - nothing more than I would take for a moderate headache. The medical staff kept looking at my notes, looking bemused and muttering "you don't seem to have been given any pain relief ..." (I had been written up for various drugs up to and including morphine). "No ... I feel fine. Really!" I would reply, feeling something of a fraud. I didn't even get the routine ibuprofen pessary given in that hospital because it was contraindicated by my asthma. And lest you think this indicates any stoicism on my part, I have to admit to being a wimp when it comes to pain. If it had hurt, believe me - I would have been taking anything offered! Yes, I was sore and getting in and out of bed was no fun to start with, but that was the worst of it. I was sitting up in bed complaining I was starving and demanding food within hours of the surgery and was trotting happily round the ward the next morning.

I came home after three days feeling so much better than I had done during pregnancy - which was, in all honesty, eight months of feeling atrocious - that I have found it a struggle to remember I even had a c-section. I have energy! I am not coughing! I can move! I can breathe! Mopping a floor is as but nothing! Last week I had some surface sensitivity and soreness - healing nerves, I guess - and I ache a bit if I overdo things, but most of the time I feel pretty close to 100%. At least I did until today, when I woke up with mastitis ... and yes, I am resting now. Curled up on the bed with a laptop and a sleeping baby, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in.