Slight setback

I went to get up last night and of all things pulled a muscle in my left (non-operant) thigh, which is fairly painful. It's making it more difficult to walk independently from the walker or cane. The pain on both sides has been about equal, a 4 at the most, and that's during certain stressful movements. I've only been taking one 8-hour Tylenol for pain for the  last 24 hours. I haven't taken any opioids all,l since I had the surgery. That Journavx did really help, but I haven't needed it, either, and it's meant for short-term use. So it's not super painful, but I'm resting the muscle so when I go out it'll be okay. I don't want to fall due to it being weak. Next appointment is Wednesday, so hopefully it will recover by then. 

Hi from pre-op

 

Today's the day

Waiting on my ride. I never actually got a chance to go to bed last night due to some last minute issues, of course. My feet are a little swollen as a result. But I'm packed and ready to go. My roommate is bit, but he's at least chugging coffee and trying.

Desert!

Just did my second session on the the range of motion machine this time the background was a desert scene rather than the Alpine village from this morning. I used to really bike through the desert when I lived in the Mojave. So it was nice. It's a 12-minute workout, 10 passive, 2 active. The first one put me out for most of the next three hours with some ice and a little pain increase. But I'm hoping to do better the second time. But I do have to lie down and elevate and ice my leg. I plan to hey back up and do things. Really. I did eat some cottage cheese and challah afterwards. That's in top of my banana breakfast. I don't reach much when I'm at home, don't get very hungry,

Also, Itook my next dose of Mounjaro to get back on track after surgery. I had to stop mine a week ahead. I stopped it 2 weeks out. IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP FOR USERS OF GLP-1 DRUGS such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, please realise that these medications work by slowing the emptying of the stomach, and therefore if your are sedated for any reason, you can aspirate and choke to death or get a form of pneumonia, either of which can kill you. As a result hospitals and other centres that sedate will not do so if you've taken one within one week. I knew this, but forgot before my colonoscopy and was given the option to reschedule and redo the prep or do it unsedated. I chose the latter. A surgery would have had to be rescheduled completely, though, so yes, I went two weeks out.😊

Today's the day

In the waiting room now.

I am so behind

but here goes...

Number five...

A Total Knee Replacement Handbook: How to Self-Advocate for Your Own Health Care and Well-Being, Before and After Surgery by Carolyn Fortuna

This is from a patient's perspective, as opposed to the previous text, which was written by an orthopaedic surgeon and was well-prepared. I'm glad I got one from each viewpoint.  Incidentally, both had very similar recommendations, which I found interesting.

It's sad that I've only read five books in six months. My goal this year is 36. Maybe I can catch up while I'm laid up. I don't know. In the past, I've generally been unable to read in recovery from surgeries, and mostly it's been listening to music in terms of entertainment for me. We'll see. I'm going to try to make a concerted effort to read this year, I think. Stay tuned to see if that ever comes to fruition. I have several books out from the library that sound very interesting, and the librarian said they wouldn't come after me even if I couldn't return them. (I'll have Brenda do it sometime when she comes over to play the game or maybe if she takes me to the doctor). But I feel like a dragon sitting on a hoard of treasure, anyway. :) Oh, and I have an app on my phone counting down to the big event...I'm now 41 days out from surgery. When it's within 30 I can file for FMLA/short-term disability. It's close. It's starting to get real.

I just have to share what my psychiatrist, who is Brazilian, so his first language is Portuguese, not English, said. I told him I was nervous about the procedure and he said, and I quote:

Oh, there's nothing to worry about. We just cut off your knees and put in the prosthesis!

To which I replied:

Dr. X, that does not make me feel better!

At this point he realised, after 40 years of practice, that perhaps he'd said the wrong thing, and went into a personal story meant to soothe where his wife had each knee done and the surgeries had gone very well. I was just glad he had gone from medical school into psychiatry rather than orthopaedics. I do not think that sort of bedside manner would fly. Don't get me wrong, I love my psychiatrist. He manages my meds well and I've gone to him for a long time. But, still...

I told my therapist (who had been very good about telling me, 'oh, there are so many of these done, I'd much rather have a surgery where so many were done a year rather than one every once in awhile') what he said and she was flummoxed. Mind you, they're in the same practice. I'm not sure if she's allowed to share that so long as no personal information of mine gets shared, but I suspect it will get around the office, as these things do. :) 

Hope I can do this

Just 26 more pounds and I can have my knee surgery. If I can lose that in three months (by my next appointment) I might be able to do it at the end of the year. I'm at what I think is called Stage 4 (the worst) end-stage osteoarthritis of the knee, meaning it's bone-on-bone without much of any cartilage. The gel shots helped for a while but haven't held the last year or so and we've needed to do cortisone at the three-month mark to supplement it (insurance only pays for the gel every 6 months and 2 days). I have been in so much pain that even with ibuprofen, I've been at my desk with pain throbbing enough that I can't hardly think. If I could have the first surgery late in the year, I wouldn't pay anything out-of-pocket. So I have a lot of incentive to lose the weight soon and make it a 100-lb. loss. It's doable. Until the last couple of weeks I was losing about 2 lbs. a week, and it hasn't gone up or anything. But for the surgery, my BMI has to be under 40. If I lose 26 lbs. it'll be at 39.9. Wish me luck!

Images for dramatic effect. Hey, it's not a HIPAA violation if I share my own knee images. 🙂 Besides, many of you are either medical folks or have gone through similar stuff yourselves.

I should not have made such a lengthy to-do list

I was at the furniture store Saturday morning and as I was wrapping up the daybed purchase, I got a call from a friend, and I knew immediately something was wrong. He'd been having some pain the day before, and we thought it might be gas. But it had gotten worse. So I hurried over and called our family doctor, who advised going to the emergency room. That was very good advice, as he wound up having emergency surgery. With the exception of stopping by my apartment for a few necessities and a couple of showers, I have been over at his house or running errands for him to make him more comfortable for most of the weekend. Since this is the friend with whom I'm moving in, I guess you could say we had a trial run for living together. I hadn't originally planned to stay last night, so I slept in my jeans and a shirt, just taking off my belt and bra. At one point I woke up and I was halfway off the bed, as the dog had kicked me over, and my jeans were twisted so that the fly was on my right hip. Needless to say, I pushed the dog back and made sure I kept my ground from then on.

I'd set my alarm for 5 am to give me plenty of time to go home, shower, and get ready, but woke up at 4:30 to help him. I went ahead and fed the animals, as he can't really bend at the moment, got my stuff together, went home, got ready, dropped off some books that needed to go back to the library, and went to work almost an hour early. So now I'm sitting in the break room having a little alone time and catching up with news, etc. It's going to be a very busy week--four days of over 100 patients in clinic, with Wednesday having over 200! After work today I'm going to go check on him.

Okay, it's almost time to go upstairs and start my day. Hope you had a good weekend!

Despite the fact that the doctor was running an hour behind

and I had to get a friend to another appointment right after (we were about 15 minutes late for that), my followup to my surgery went really well. The tech took out the staples and put steri-strips on my incisions, which will just stay on until they come off. The surgeon was pleased with my recovery and told me to do some exercises with some ankle weights to strengthen the leg, but otherwise just come back if something else is needed. They gave me a CD with pictures of the surgery, and he showed me the difference between the shredded and cleaned up meniscus, as well as the smoothing he did on the femur head (I think that's the chondroplasty part). I am a little sore now simply because of taking the staples out and because I've been walking fairly fast (for me) and without a limp most of the day, so I took some acetaminophen and that's taken care of it. Even at the end of the day, normally, it already feels better than after the injury, and I'm having less pain walking and driving. It's not even hurting much getting out of the car, which was the worst part for the first few days. So all in all, I think things went pretty well.

Three positive thoughts, day five

1. I am recovering nicely from surgery, for which I am grateful.
2. I have insurance which paid for the surgery, for which I am grateful.
3. I have a job and career that I love (and by the way, the job helps pay for the insurance that paid for my surgery, for which I'm grateful).

Okay, that's the last day. I think that was a nice exercise. It did rather make me feel better.

I made it through most of a workday!

Well, I made it over 6 hours at work today, which isn't bad post-surgery. I got everything I absolutely needed to do finished, but I was getting pooped and sore and didn't want to overdo it, so I decided to come home and start fresh tomorrow for the full amount of time. Go, me! :) (I also discovered rolling chairs are not my friend; fortunately I didn't fall out of one. But it was close.)

I thought

after I finished watching Despicable Me 2 (which was quite fun), I would just go back to sleep for a little while, especially as I'd changed out my CPAP supplies. But I found I wasn't too sleepy, so I listened to Bastille's Bad Blood and played on my phone for awhile, mostly downloading updates to applications and looking at Facebook posts. Per a conversation with YKWIA earlier, I added A Streetcar Named Desire to the Netflix queue, as I've never seen it.

I have decided that unless I feel terrible tomorrow morning, I will go into work at least part of the day. If I feel like I'm overdoing it, I'll go ahead and leave. I don't think either of my bosses would have trouble with that (although neither of them will be there tomorrow, as they're both on vacation). So, here's what I need to do tomorrow:

• Send Despicable Me 2 back in to Netflix
• Send my mom her birthday card
• Enter the charge sheets from Friday if there are any and Monday as they come in
• Work on the referrals
• Do the OR reconciliation
• Take care of any library requests that are waiting
• Check about possible speakers for that forum on mobile devices

No lifting, no rearranging, no shelving books or journals, nothing like that, yet...just getting to my desk, doing stuff there, and maybe getting my sheets from another department and going to the cafeteria and the like. No overdoing it. If I need help, I'll ask for it. I'm sure people will be willing to help if I need it. I will take my cane just for a little added stability going through the parking lot, but I shouldn't need it around the hospital any more than I do here.

All in all, despite the surgery, it's been a good weekend. My friends who took me were great, my mom called and checked on me (she had a procedure at the same time, so she couldn't come up) as soon as she was able, A was great about staying over, today has been pretty peaceful, and while I had my doubts about how quickly they said I should be able to do things, I must say the doctor has been right so far. Apparently he did talk to my friends (I don't remember even seeing him, if I did), and stressed my need to lose weight, which of course, he'd already spoken to me about. If I can start walking without the pain I've been having, I think I have a chance of doing that, and I'm trying to watch my blood sugar and eating already. My left knee is also hurting, and I plan on mentioning it to him when I seem him for my post-op visit. I don't know if it was hurt when I got down on the ground like the other, but not as badly, or more likely it's hurting because 1) it's my 'bad' knee, and 2) it's been working harder with this one being so bad off. We'll see. If it's just arthritis, then that's one thing. If the meniscus is an issue on it as well and it's about the same as this one was, then I may need further treatment. But I'd like to see how this heals and if I have less pain first. But if I could get to where my knees weren't painful, I'd be much more likely to walk and exercise, as it has been one of the limiting factors for years.

I have now proven

that I can drive. I've been off the pain pills since early this morning, on just regular acetaminophen, so the narcotics should be out of my system by now. I woke up just a little while ago and it was actually sunny, so I decided to try to do a shower and change the bandages on my own, which I did, and then got into some comfy shorts and a shirt and checked to see if I could wear my sandals okay, and then went out to the car and tested that out. It's a little painful to get out of the car, not as bad getting in, actually, but I did okay. I went the shortest route up to the corner store, Circle K, meaning that I was going between a reservoir and a marsh, but hey, sometimes we must dare. I wouldn't have gotten into the car and put it in gear if I hadn't been feeling well and comfortable doing so.

I parked behind the store so I wouldn't have to do any tricky stuff with trying to get out of their busy lot, and I must say walking to the store, around it, and back was about enough for me. So even though technically I could drive to work in the morning, I'm not sure I can get from the car to my desk and back easily. If I wake up feeling bouncy and ready to go tomorrow, I'll go. If I feel like I still have some healing to do before trying to make it the full day, then I'll stay home, or perhaps come in for half a day. In fact, the half a day might be good in order to gauge how I'll do for a full day, rather than rushing in.

In the meantime, I now have some caffeine and paper towels, and a DVD to watch (Despicable Me 2), so I'm hoping I can sit up for awhile and do that.

In some ways

I felt better on the day of surgery than today. Maybe it was a combination of the fluids and anaesthetic. You can tell every time I've been up by when I posted today (well, and yesterday, too), usually at a half an hour a time. But I think I've actually slept more today. Since A left, I've pretty much just gotten up to eat and then went right back to bed, for longer and longer periods at a time. For example, He left around 11:45 am. I woke up about 1:30, then 3:30, then 7:30, and now 11:30. The last time I went to bed I listened to music for awhile and put my phone on to charge, because we're supposed to have storms tonight (in fact, a warning just popped up on my phone). Because I'd gone over 6 hours without my pain medicine, I was in quite a bit of pain around 7:30 (I'd taken it when A left). Even elevating the leg hurt some, so I finally just went on my side with a pillow between my legs, and that was more comfortable. I'm going to take some more in just a bit so that I can get back to sleep comfortably, even though it will be just over four-and-a-half hours this time.

I am beginning to regret the decision not to get any soda for my time off from driving. Water is better, and I'm drinking quite a bit, but going cold turkey from caffeine maybe wasn't such a good plan. That and the pain medicine combines to make me very sleepy every time I do try to get up and maybe surf the net or do something not strenuous but engaging the mind, like read. I know I should get some rest, but it's a little frustrating. Maybe tomorrow I can do a little more. I'm going to try to cut back on the medicine to half starting tomorrow afternoon if I can, so by Monday I can switch to regular acetaminophen.

The wind is really starting to pick up outside. I hope my window boxes don't get blown off. I managed to water all the plants earlier, including the ones outside, and thought about putting them down on the ground, but decided that was too much bending.

Okay, I'm sleepy already (and I haven't even taken the medicine yet.) I'm going to go take that and head back to the bedroom. Sorry I'm not good company. But all in all, the surgery went well and the recovery is progressing well so far. Hopefully it will continue to do so.

That was the closest thing to a sleepover I've had in a long while, even if it wasn't for the most fun of reasons

My friend (read 'keeper') has gone home after making sure I did fine in the shower and helping me change my bandages. Despite the serpentine ACE bandage that's as long as my leg, there are actually only two small stapled incisions under all that gauze and cloth, which I kept dry with Harry Potter Band-Aids, plastic wrap and Kroger's bags. I did use the shower chair, too, and angled the shower head away from that leg, so that helped. I didn't even need to use a blow dryer before we put new gauze on it and the other bandages back on. He was very good about making sure I got rest and didn't overdo it, so much that I had to chuck the whole 'good hostess' thing and just get used to being waited on. Thank you, A! I will bring your ice cream over when I'm driving again!

I'm eating veggie burgers and some Doritos A had asked for, and I think I'm pretty much going to back to bed now. I'd taken a pain med right before he left, then slept for about two hours, but my stomach woke me up actually hungry, so I thought I should get up. The mail just ran, and I checked it, but there wasn't anything. I haven't really read or watched TV (except for about fifteen minutes with A at one point this morning while I ate breakfast). I did listen to a little music last night. But mostly I've rested, with my leg up. I'll see if I can start taking the pain meds down to half a pill tomorrow. I might be able to go back to work Monday, but I don't want to push it, and at this point, although yes, I can put weight on my leg, I'm not sure I'm up to driving. But by Monday or definitely Tuesday I should, barring anything like infection or the like. I go back to the surgeon on the 5th, I think, and then I'll have the staples out. I've never had staples before. These are pretty small, a little thicker than paper staples but about the same length. My mom, back in the 80s, had chest surgery and they had these huge staples under her rib; they looked like the ones on big cardboard boxes. I had never seen them before. I asked if they had a special tool to get them out or if they just had to pry them off with scissors (I was being a smart aleck), and she told me to stop cracking jokes because it hurt to laugh.

Okay, I really am getting terribly sleepy again. Time to go back to bed. I gave A the big fuzzy blanket last night, so now I get it back. The short, thin one was fine last night, but I was a little cool when I woke up a bit ago.

I've pretty much spent the day

elevating my leg and sleeping for about 2-3 hours at a time, and then getting up briefly for food and water. The notable exception was about 3:30 pm, when I had just spoken to YKWIA, who was checking up on me. I heard a knock on the door, and thought it was way too early for my friend A, who is spending the night, to be there, as he was coming from work on the bus. I went outside and heard a motor outside. Thinking it might have been the post, and knowing I had CPAP materials on the way, I went outside and was up the first step without even realising it. I stopped there and cried, 'Wait!' It was a UPS truck. I asked the driver if he was trying to deliver to my apartment, and told him I was sorry, I'd just had surgery today, and hadn't gotten to the door in time. He backed up and gave me my package and had me sign for it, then went on his merry way. It was only after the adrenaline started to fade I'd realised what I'd done, and that while I wasn't obviously bleeding or anything bad, I was hurting a bit and it was time to go back inside. I was out of breath, and called YKWIA, who was somewhat exasperated with me and told me to go to bed.

I slept for a little while and then got up again about dinnertime, when A came over. He took out my forgotten trash from this morning. I oriented him to things like the phone, the food, TV, etc., and then ate something myself. Then it was time to take a pain pill and I went back to bed. This time it was a three-hour sleep. I came out to take my Lantus and get a snack (I hadn't eaten much at dinner, because pain pills rob me of my appetite, and my Byetta limits it a bit, too). I took out a blanket and pillow. He was asleep on the loveseat with 'Law & Order' on, which is sort of his natural habitat. I did have the air mattress out if he wanted that, but I think despite being nearly six feet tall he'd rather sleep on the loveseat rather than blow it up. So at least he has a blanket and the pillow, plus all the pillows (mostly small cat-shaped ones) to get comfortable with.

I got some water and went back to bed, this time starting up the laptop and I've got myself propped up against one of those pillows with arms and a pillow under my leg. Of course, I need to elevate it above the heart, so when I'm sleeping, I have three pillows--one regular, one sham, and one fluffy Euro pillow--stacked up and my leg on that without actually being behind my knee, as per instructions. I'll go back to that when I go back to bed. I just wanted to wait up a bit when it's time to take my next tablet for the night, which should be in a few minutes. Then I'll go back to bed. I hope A is not too bored. I'm doing better than we expected and was up a bit when he came in, and when he called YKWIA he passed on in no uncertain terms that I was to take it easy, not wait on him, and get some rest. It's nice to be loved. :)

Up for a bit

I decided it was time to:

• Go to the bathroom for the first time since early, early this morning
• Get a bite to eat (veggie sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit)
• Take my insulin
• Take my oral medications
• Ice my knee

and generally try to get back into a routine. I'm finishing up the last of the Diet Root Beer YKWIA gave me after surgergy, which was very welcome. Believe it or not, when I did that grocery shopping yesterday, I didn't get soda. A didn't want any, and I decided water would probably be best.

I walked over to the hospital this morning, which meant both knees were in pain before the surgery. The one is, now, even with the pain pill they gave me earlier, but it's not horrible. I can walk a limited amount of time on it, like from one end of the apartment to another. Getting up and down is best done in a sort of straight-leg fashion, leaving most of the bending for the 'good' knee. When I'm elevating my knee, though, I tending to rotate the knee out a bit, and my feet go out on the pillow. That happened with the ankle surgery and it was fine, but the knee seems to hurt worse when I do that, so I'm trying to prop it up in ways it won't rotate. My knee apparently has the equivalent of Band-Aids on it, but is wrapped from above the knee to my foot in an ACE bandage. I'm looking at my post-op instructions, and if I wrap the area with plastic wrap thoroughly and keep the incisions dry, I can shower tomorrow. I'll do that while A is still there, and probably use the shower chair just to be safe. I can then change the Band-Aids. It sounds like if I can tolerate the pain enough without the meds in a couple of days, I should be able to drive and hence return to work, barring any problems. Yay!

My stomach was just a tiny bit upset when I laid down in the bed after getting home, but the Pepcid they gave me before the anaesthesia did pretty well--I've never gotten sick from that or pain meds. I know one poor lady who had cancer and was given pain meds that made her throw up horribly.

Apparently the main reason my surgery was moved is due to the need for latex precautions. I react to latex, usually as itching, but I once had a dentist who re-gloved with latex gloves and my mouth and tongue began to swell. So they're fairly careful with me now. At the time, the dentist wound up taking me to the sink and rinsing my mouth out with soap, which stopped the reaction, thankfully, bu it tasted horrid.

I managed to get up by 4:15 this morning and finish a lot of the home stuff that I couldn't the night before. The only two important things I forgot were to take out the trash (I'm going to ask A to take it out--I put it all together and got it ready and then walked off without it) and then putting on deodorant, which I rectified a little while ago. Funny the little things that slip your mind and then bug you later.

Okay, I'm still a little sleepy and I should really be elevating this knee now that I've eaten. Actually, I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open. Back to bed! Hope your day is going well. It's so odd to be off from work on a Friday. Have a happy weekend.

This isn't my surgery itself

But it is basically what was done to my knee today...

<

Now, time for that nap...

Home from the hospital

Having some pain,  but it should ease up now that I have my knee propped up and I have taken some pain medicine. I will ice it in a bit. They did a partial meniscectomy with a chondroplasty.  I can put weight on it for short periods of time.  Right now I am in bed and I think I will try to get some sleep--I only got about three hours max last night or so.  I will write later,  hopefully.  All in all,  it wasn't too bad.

So the hospital called today

to confirm my surgery, and they want me there a full hour before I was scheduled previously. Now I'm already getting two people who are not morning persons up at an ungodly hour, one of which is driving in from another county, and I live practically across the street from the hospital, so I asked if I could come over at the appointed time and then they come over an hour later, and they said that was fine. There shouldn't be a problem so long as they are there to take me home, and I won't be going back to surgery until after they get there, anyway. Of course, it does mean walking across the street where I was hit a couple of years ago very early in the morning, but hey. Now I'm very tired, but I have things to do before I go to sleep. I've gotten my insulin, taken a friend to an appointment, made keys for my friends, and gone to the grocery so there's food for A and me to eat that is not too involved. But I'm running out of steam. I don't know if I'll be up to blogging tomorrow or not, but I'll try to. For now, though, I'd better get a few things done, even though I want to put my feet up and rest.