Except, there are some mudslides and sheer rockfaces, seemingly impossible. Now, if you've had this surgery and you breezed right through it, can I have your secret? Here are a tangle of facts, you can decipher them if you wish:
The hospital said to be there at 9:45, I was still waiting for the poke in the spine at 1:30. All those hours in the hospital bed! I did get up twice, but still...the anesthesiologist gave me some options, so I went with what he leaned strongly towards: the poke in the spine, a spinal. Technically, I was awake for the entire procedure, but I didn't feel anything, or hear or see anything. They told me I'd get something to make me sleepy, then they'd sit me up on the side of the bed and put the needle in, and I probably wouldn't remember. I didn't.
The pluses of this over general anesthesia: you wake up, and you are awake. Not groggy and falling back to sleep and crying and everything (one of my girls had general anesthesia for wisdom teeth removal, she woke up crying her eyes out...)
Oh, it was cheery and happy and I was full to the brim of relief...it was done. phew. They brought me to my room, and you will never guess what floor they put me on. Yes. The maternity floor. Those poor nurses, they aren't ortho nurses! They take care of laboring mamas and newborns, postpartum, lady's surgerys. Not new knees. I may or may not be writing a letter to the hospital about this...one of the nurses said, "They think nurses are nurses." Don't get me wrong, they were kind and attentive, and the floor was quiet and the room was a private, and very nice...but why?
The first time I got up to go to the bathroom, I almost died. Okay, exaggeration. But. I was light headed and dizzy and my surgical leg weighed a ton and it was wrapped with ace bandages from the bottom of the foot to the top of the thigh. There had been breakthrough bleeding, oh dear.
But, I did it, and I got back into bed for the long night of...bending my foot back and forth, and getting up a few more times to go to the bathroom. I couldn't sleep, the oxycodine makes my really loopy.
This is the bend I attained today. This is not going to be a linear process, I am seeing that, because later when I got home, I tried to bend, and ended up in tears saying bad words, it hurt like the devil and would not bend.
Anyway. This is where I was sitting, in a chair, when the P.A. from the ortho office came in to check on me. He said, "Just the fact that you're sitting there in that chair puts you ahead of the curve. A lot of people wouldn't even be up yet." (this guy was only like 20...well, maybe 30, thankfully I didn't ask him how do they hold their pee so long?
I was very excited that he was proud of me, and I felt like I had turned a corner. The PT lady came in with her no-nonsense 31 years of experience, and pushed me to my limit, but acknowledged that my blood pressure was quite low, so I wouldn't be able to do much. But. She gave me excellent advice: keep moving. Flex that foot up and down, bend and unbend the leg, sit with it straight (apparently keeping it bent can cause it to stay that way!)
I had the huge-0 ace bandages off, and was feeling quite confident. Well. nope. no no no. I somehow made it out of the hospital, and into the car, and into the house...Paul helped me SO much up those stairs...but my new knee was feeling wobbly and I didn't like it.
It exhausted me to come home, so I sat here in my chair with ice, and fell asleep like twenty times. Then, like a good girl, time to get up again! I tried to put my foot on the floor so my leg would bend, and it would NOT go, it hurt like...well, I felt waves of hot and cold, and it hurt. I got it back up onto the stool, and calmed down. Then got up a different way and made my way into the bathroom. I was able to gently bend the leg a bit when I sat on the lovely old-people toilet thingy. phew.
I know there are going to be ups and downs, and I hate it, but there's nothing I can do but press on and endure, and work on being thankful that I am able to get a better knee. I'm pretty sure there'll be a hundred more times I'll wish I hadn't done this thing, ha.
Right now I am so tired I can't see straight. There is a giant ache in the knee, and I'm planning to half the oxy dose they gave me in the hospital. I don't like feeling so weak and woozy.
And, the cherry on the top: the nerve blocker that was injected into the knee is wearing off. So before it gets better, it will get worse. I know, I am a drama queen. But this is more painful than having babies. :)
The girls are here but are leaving for a meeting, Paul is in his office. I am mentally getting used to that I can't just hop up and do things and grab things. I can hobble to the bathroom, and that's about it. It's hard to be dependent on other people, but Paul and the girls have been wonderful.
I'm sure I have like fifty more really good stories, I mean, you could write a book about the day surgery waiting room! But...I am tired and done, so have a good night, and thank you for kind thoughts and words.
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