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| Incisions on knee on 10-31-13 - completely sealed! |
PHYSICAL THERAPY
I see the doctor in 18 days for my 6week checkup. I'm looking forward to getting 60 degrees of flexion- I'm doing pretty well with 30 degrees, and it feels good to do my heel slides now. It's like my quad is saying thank you lol. After I get to 60, it'll be a few weeks before they give me 90 during physical therapy and let me keep my brace at an unlocked 60 degrees. Next week we start using the cups to break up some of the scar tissue underneath the incision (which has finally completely scabbed over/closed up), which she said will be really painful, but help alleviate future issues. Swelling is still elevated, but I'm holding steady at around 3 to 3.5cm, which is where I was constantly pre-surgery. She said she would have expected it to go down a little more, but that it's not a deal-breaker for it to still be swollen 4 weeks after the surgeries they performed. As long as it doesn't balloon up again, I'm at a pretty decent level for now.
TUMMY TROUBLES
They are all but gone, and two days ago something miraculous happened- I got my appetite back. Now I have to keep the eating under control, but it's a releif to not be worried about be nauseous after taking a pill or having a cup of coffee. I've still experienced the nausea with pain, but I'm told that's a normal thing.
PAIN LEVEL
I feel like I may have turned the corner that everyone said was coming. Monday was alright until physical therapy, and after I was in a lot of pain. I've been staying away from the hardcore stuff as much as possible, (unless I'm in an exceptional amount of pain) and on Tuesday, for the entire day the pain kept building, and the tylenol did nothing for me; I took half a Norco and that gave me a few hours of relief before it came back again. When I woke up Wednesday I felt sore, but not my usual throb-burn. I did my exercises and took a nice hot shower, and felt pretty good! I did physical therapy and told her about the pain monday, so she took it a little easier on me, and I felt good enough afterwards to go to the office for a few hours! I was definitely in pain later that night because I pushed myself so much, but it was worth it. Yesterday I did nothing but work from home, and the pain was completely manageable with ice throughout the day, and some tylenol. I'm still taking the Ibuprofen every day 3x for the swelling. Point being, I feel like the pain level today (having done nothing too strenuous yesterday) is okay. I'm hoping the trend continues, and really really want to believe that the hard part is over :)
WORK UPDATE
I rode in the front seat on the way to the office, for the first time since my surgery- it was a pretty short drive after PT on Wednesday, but I think I'm not quite there yet. At work, however, it was great to get some face time with my team. We got to sit side by side and talk and hammer out some issues, and it felt so good to work with real people again. I stuck around for the office halloween happy hour to chat and play games with my coworkers (drinking water instead of beer obviously), and had a lot of fun. Definitely the morale boost I needed, and it seems like they were very glad to see me.
SLEEP UPDATE
Using NyQuil has been really helpful for me, because when I wake up in pain, I get back to sleep pretty quickly. Last night I decided I was sleep-deprived enough to forgo the nyquil (and it was late when I decided this), and what a mistake that was. I couldn't fall asleep again once I woke up! I was up and down constantly throughout the night until I gave up this morning, hobbled out to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee and got online for work. Today I will be trying to crank through as much as possible so I won't feel bad for signing off from work early, and definitely taking the nyquil again tonight. If anyone has any suggestions on something other than nyquil like a natural supplement or sleep/pillow fort position that prevents them from waking up in pain so much, please please please advise. My problem is waking up straining against the brace painfully, or on my side/back when I didn't fall asleep that way. I don't want to be doing the nyquil every night forever- I'm sure even though my doctor is always amazed at how perfect my liver functions at my physical (despite that until last December I used to be a heavy drinker), my liver has had just about all the acetaminophen it can handle.
Overall, morale seems to be going up. I think some pain relief and getting out of the apartment were just what I needed. Friends came over to play games and such last night, which was fun and much appreciated. Looking forward to dim sum this weekend for my birthday :)
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