Post-Op Appointment

I think the appointment was a bit anticlimatic. They took x-rays and I was told that everything looks great and lines up perfectly. He bent my right leg (which is the better of the 2) and said that it was bending perfectly for 4 weeks. Not ahead of schedule, not behind schedule, but right on target. He didn't say anything about the left leg, but it was clear that it didn't bend with the same degree of flexion and he bent it enough to hurt like crazy. I guess I should just assume as absolutely EVERYONE keeps telling me, that one knee is always worse and it WILL come along in time.

The two blood blisters (for lack of a better term) that appeared yesterday on the left incision didn't seem to bother him much either. The top one began seeping blood today at PT, and while I was worried about an infection, it seems it's okay. Nothing a little hydrogen peroxide three times a day can't handle. But, that does mean that I can't begin any kind of aquatic therapy for at least a week until it's all healed.

I need to take ecotrin for another 2 weeks, and then can just substitute baby aspirin. I'm done with the Iron too, and I can begin taking fish oil again. The dr. was fine with the fact that I wasn't taking the narcotic and seemed okay with me only taking the tramadol twice a day rather than every 6-8 hours. I'm still okay with the doses of tylenol at least for the next two months. I'm still under the max dose, but honestly, that tylenol stuff is bad news too. With my luck I'll need a liver transplant next. Ok. That really wasn't funny.

Nights still suck. At least once during the night I take another dose of tylenol because everything aches and burns. No matter what I do I can't get comfortable. During those times I wake up quite a bit. While I do get back to sleep, it's interrupted frequently and I just never really get a good night of rest. I should probably take a little nap in the afternoons, but my thought was that perhaps I'd sleep better at night if I was totally exhausted. Clearly I need to rethink this. The dr. said this is absolutely typical and will turn around somewhere around 6-8 weeks out and is one of the biggest complaints he hears.

We can finally give up the compression wraps on my legs. Of course some of the best news for me is that I can finally shave my legs. It's quite an impressive forest I've got growing there. Hey, after it gets so long it feels soft, not rough and stubly like it does a day after shaving. Maybe we should adopt that European look. Or, perhaps not! LOL!