An update…
Ok, it’s been a while, but I do have a valid excuse… surgery is a valid excuse, isn’t it?
I was scheduled to go to the hospital for 1:30 on Tuesday. As The Hubby and I were putting on our coats, the phone rang. It was the hospital. The doctor was running late due to some issues with his first surgery of the day and they pushed me back to 2:30. Now – I have not eaten anything since 11:30 Monday night ( I had some crackers and hard boiled eggs before I went to sleep), so I am not particularly happy about pushing it off an extra hour. I had actually been sleeping so I wouldn’t be thinking about the surgery or how hungry I was.
So, I went back to snooze for an hour. I get up, we put our coats on, … and the phone rings. Yup, it’s the hospital again – pushing me back to 3:30. Urggg! This time I just channel surf to pass the time. We leave at 3:00 (it’s only a 15 minute ride to the hospital) and pray that the phone doesn’t ring as we are putting on our coats. We get out the door safely and are on our way.
I go through the pre-op paperwork and physical exam; I pee in the cup and get into my nice hospital gown. The Hubby gets to come in and sit with me while I wait. They insert the needle for the IV and I see the doctor. This is the first time The Hubby has met the doctor, so he asked him a few questions and then the doctor takes a marker to my knees. On the right one, he writes “NO”; on the left leg he writes “YES” down the leg (not on the knee itself). I love a doctor who pays attention and does the right medical procedure on the right appendage!!
So I get a hug from The Hubby and they wheel me away to the surgical room. I have the nurse and the nurse anaesthiologist, plus another OR nurse in the room. They set me up on the IV and tell me I will start to feel a little different shortly. Everyone was nice and we chit chatted while they got everything set up. One of the nurses put a blood pressure cuff on me and man, was that thing tight!! I felt like it was trying to squeeze the blood out of me, not just measure the pressure! I told the nurse it was really bothering me and she readjusted the cuff; it got much better after that. Then..
Nothing. I remember nothing. I remember our conversations (talked about how I did this, about what kind of dogs I have, stuff like that) and then nothing. I didn’t “drift off”; I just wasn’t there.
Then I woke up in a different room, with The Hubby sitting next to me, looking at me. We talked; he told a bit about what the doctor said; the recovery nurse was there; but things were a bit blurry in my head still. I guess I asked The Hubby a couple of the same questions more than once – he would gently remind me that I had already asked that and I couldn’t remember that I had.
I wasn’t feeling too much pain – even after the IV had worn off. The knee had been shot up with Novocaine, so it was pretty numb. We left the hospital around 8 pm – about 3 hours later than we had thought (but pretty much all due to the delay in start time). We drove down to a Burger King to get a quick bite as I was, as you can imagine, very hungry by this point. But I really didn’t have the appetite to eat a whole hamburger – I had about half before I decided that I had enough. The nurse had kindly given me a Percocet before I left, so I was pretty much out for the night.
Wednesday I took it very easy… I took the Percocet every four hours (or whenever I woke up and at least four hours had passed). It was hard to get up and go to the bathroom, but at least the dogs were well behaved. The Hubby took them out before he left with The Boy to got to school and work. Then Pansy jumped into bed with me and Chewie found his spot under the bed and everyone stayed there until about 2 in the afternoon. I let them out and when The Boy came home at 2:30, they were ready to come in.
Thursday I got up and out of bed. I tried to work, but only managed to get in 3 or 4 hours. I took some time to get a shower in – my first since Monday night. It was difficult – but boy am I glad our shower has seats on either side! I was able to sit down and take it easy and pay attention to not getting my knee wet (it was wrapped in saran wrap). The handheld shower head was also a great help. I noticed my left arm really was hurting… which was weird since I didn’t think they had done anything to it. I looked at my arm; then I noticed I had “stretch marks” where the dang blood pressure cuff had been. I knew it was too tight! For pain management that day, I switched over to 3 Advils after meals and took a Percocet at night.
Friday I got up and drove The Boy to school. I felt so bad that The Hubby had to take over “mom duties” since Wednesday. Plus, I had my post op doctor appointment that day, so I was going to have drive later on. So I got him off to school, took a shower (a little bit easier this time), and started on some work stuff. I went to the doctor’s mid-morning and got to see pictures of the insides of my knee. He showed me what it should look like, and what it actually looked like. He was a bit concerned that I was still having trouble bending and flexing my knee. He said he wanted me to get into physical therapy as soon as I could. When I was on the table during surgery he had my knee flat out without any issue, and since he had cut out the frayed mensicus, there was nothing impeding my knee from operating normally.
I had to switch physical therapists since my insurance did not gave their group in the plan. I had printed out some area places for my doctor to look at, and there was one down the street from me – probably not more than two miles away. I drove home, stopped at the place, and they had an appointment available at 2 that afternoon. So, I booked it and went home for a few hours to get some more work done.
I got down there in plenty of time, filled out the paperwork and met the physical therapist. He talked to me about the injury, the surgery, what was I able to do, and what he was able to do for me. He felt the big problem was my knee muscles were too tight to work correctly. I had spent over a month not using the muscles to walk because of the pain, and the pain combined with the expectation of pain was making me tense up and cause more pain – a beautiful self fulfilling prophecy.
So he started out with some easy stuff. He used an ultrasound to help warm up and loosen the muscles. Then he rotated my knee cap – which felt really, really good. Then he had me bend my knee as much as I could. He measured the angle – it was about 45 degrees. Then he had me basically pull my leg up as far as I could stand it with a belt; leave it there for about a minute; then move it a bit more. I did that for about 5 minutes; he measured again and I was at 100 degrees. He was pretty happy about that improvement (and so was I!). He gave me some exercises to do over the weekend and then sent me home.
I noticed I was walking better – still not perfectly, but better. I have been trying to use my tai chi principles when I walk. Because of the pain, I had been putting most of my weight on the right leg when I moved or stood still. I now pay attention to where my weight is – where my balance is – and then re-adjust to be more balanced and centered. I was able to sleep last night without any pain medication – and I felt like my leg was more straight and relaxed then the night before.
Today The Hubby and I ran the Blood Drive at our church. We were up early and stayed there until about 2 pm. I paid extra attention to standing in a balanced position and when I was sitting, keeping my knee bent so that I would feel it (but not pass out from the pain). I only did my exercises once today, but I also added something to them. I walked up stairs, the way a normal person would. I went up and down the stairs to the office about 3 or 4 times, moving my office back upstairs where it belongs! I had a real hard time walking down the stairs the “normal” way. I managed to do it all the way done twice; halfway down once and did the one leg at a time method for the last time. But still, I haven’t walked up stairs normally for a very long time, so I will take that improvement for today and keep working at it.