Well I've completely lost track of time and place, but I have survived the surgery. It went well, apparently, and took about 2 hours. They had a hard time controlling my pain after surgery and that should have been a hint for me, but I really wanted to come home so once I got stabilized on Vicodin they sent me off. The afternoon and evening went all right, I guess. It's kind of a haze. But this morning was really, really awful. I went for 5 hours instead of 4 on the Vicodin and holy mackeral, was I in pain. Honestly the only thing that has hurt worse than this was Theo's forceps-assisted delivery. I was just in agony. I called the doctor and he called in a prescription for Lortab which Kevin ran out and got for me, and that did take the edge off the pain, thank god. But it's still pretty bad.
My mom and dad came over in the afternoon, which helped tremendously so that Kevin could actually get some stuff done that he needed to do instead of trying to wait for Theo's naps, as I am totally incapacitated and can't even get in and out of bed without help. Additionally, I have this wrap on that's attached to a machine that circulates cold water so that it's a constant cold pack around my knee. Which would be great if the cold actually reached my knee, which it doesn't. After some very frustrating hours, I called the company that we're renting this thing from and they sent out a tech to look at it. Turns out that I have the incision, then a dressing over that, then an ACE bandage over that, and then the ice pack thing, and the tech guy said that there was just too many layers to get my knee really cold. And since I'm obviously not going to undo anything my doctor did, I'm kind of stuck. I tried a traditional ice pack but didn't get any relief from that either, and that was just a bit painful with the weight on my knee, so i'm back to this pad thing.
Anyway, the Lortab does have another pleasant side effect--nausea. Now I'm one of those people with a very sensisitve stomach and can pretty much throw up at the drop of a hat anyway, so add a nausea-inducing medication and it's not a pretty sight. I'm okay if I take it with some food and an anti-nausea medicine I already take for my heart medication that makes me nauseous (following so far?), but this afternoon I kind of took it with only a small snack and that was a big mistake. I ended up throwing up several times, taking another dose, throwing THAT up, taking another one, and finally knocking out with some sleep. My stomach is still a bit queasy but Kevin stocked up on high protein snacks so that has helped tremendously and my last dose has gone very well.
All in all I feel like crap. But these first few days are the hardest and it's just a matter of pushing through them. I'm so thankful for Kevin, my mother in law who came over yesterday to watch Theo, and my folks today. I'm just anxious to put this all behind me as soon as I can.
I am, however, quite pleased with myself as far as fashion is concerned. I really only have 3 pairs of shorts and none are elastic-waisted, so I thought I probably better buy some cheap athletic shorts to wear to physical therapy and around the house that can get over the brace easily. I headed over to Target and made a beeline straight to the clearance rack. I got 3 pairs of Champion brand athletic shorts for $18. Yes! THREE pairs of shorts for $18! And when you see the colors, you'll wonder why they were ever on sale in the first place. The tree frog green pair looks quite stylish against the neon orange/red pair, and the pair whose color can best be described as "electric tangerine" was double-discounted. I can't believe nobody picked up these fashionable colors at full price!
Posted by Shelby at August 9, 2009 12:37 AM