My stress level is not anywhere near where I was in July, where I literally did not sleep more than three or four hours for four days before the surgery, and then the night before got one hour of sleep. I was so worked up that I couldn't text anyone because the myoclonic tics/spasms I get from stress and lack of sleep were so bad I was double-tapping the phone, and I couldn't text for about four days. Since my roommate had called and not gotten through to people (well, once he got voicemail, and he doesn't leave voicemails--I really should put my friend Brenda in charge of updates), no one knew how I was doing for days.
However, according to my roommate, I'm stressed; he can tell. And my watch yesterday said my stress was moderate to high at times. My tics are back, too, not as severe as they were by any means, but they're there, and I have had very few in the month since the last surgery, where I've been off work and much more relaxed.
I know what to expect. I know it'll most likely be fine. They do a lot of these surgeries, and even though it's a fairly big one, it's become commonplace. But my anxiety is still rearing its big, ugly head. My roommate and I talked a little bit about it over dinner last night, and I do feel better. I promised not to go into 'try to control everyone's actions around me' mode again, because I will get booted to a rehab facility at best or the street at worst if that happens again, he has assured me. I promise nothing under the influence of medication, but I promised to be a model patient otherwise. Last time, while I didn't mean to, I wouldn't listen to people and kept trying to do things my own way, or at least that's how he took it. Actually, it's just that I'm incredibly bad at asking fo help, because in the past I've done so and been made to feel stupid, so I don't want to feel stupid, and so the consequence is I go boldly forward with my own idea and...wind up doing something stupid, because I don't have the information I need, like the aide needs to turn the alarm off the bed before I reach for something at the foot of it, for example. Anyway, my goal is to get through this one smoother in terms of interactions with my friend, who was quite wroth with me last time over that (but who still took very excellent care of me, having been a professional CNA back in the day). Hopefully, the surgery will go well, and the recovery will go just as well on the right as on the left.
I will say that Baptist and Dr. Talwalkar's office has been wonderful. Their protocols did so much for my recovery. The nerve block pump, for example, that I went home with and kept for five days, had me up and moving quicker, so I didn't care that I was on that ROMTech bike three times a day or going to PT the day after being released from the hospital and moving that knee around that much. I just wasn't in a super amount of pain. My pain never exceeded a 7 or maybe an 8 at the worst, which was where I was before the surgery, all the time, pretty much, and mostly stayed about a 5. Recently, it's been a 1-2. I did have an increase in pain when the ROMTech bike started increasing resistance by one minute, and it really made it more difficult for my knee. They videoed in yesterday and asked me how it was going, and I told them I was struggling and was just honest that I was only doing it twice a day and it was hurting. They changed the treatment plan, knocking off two minutes of resistance, saying it was better to do the exercise three times a day at a lower amount of resistance because, while they want to build up strength, moving the knee as much as possible is more important. Next week, the plan will change again; they're going to send me a new code and download a new plan for the post-surgery treatment for the right knee, but he's aware of this, and he said that it would still give me the ability to get more sessions in than I would have been otherwise.
Meanwhile, I'm practising (both in PT and at home), taking stairs on the opposite feet as normal. You know how you go up on your good foot and down on your bad? Well, all my life, my good one has been my right, my bad has been my left. That is about to switch. I have discovered that going up on my left is a matter of strength, and we've been doing strengthening exercises that have helped, and they seem to be working. Going down is another matter. I have trouble with control and making sure I don't fall, and it's harder. So I really need to practice with my quad cane more. I've got a few days here, plus one more PT appointment, before I come home from surgery.
So I'm doing all I can do to be prepared. I've got this. No need to worry, right?
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