The Struggle

I prefer to think that right now some of my problems are the result of stopping the huge doses of narcotics cold turkey. I am so freaking emotional even I can't stand me. I cry at everything and I do mean everything. I get shivers that are strangely from the inside out. Brent and my brother have to be so tired of seeing me snivel.

The big trial has been figuring out what to do about the drug issue. The surgeon called in two new pain meds. Hydrochodone which is another narcotic and would replace the percocet, and ultram which is not a narcotic and would replace the oxycontin. At this point, I've been without narcotic pain meds for 48 hours and am not, barring any serious complicaions, even considering taking the hydrochodone. Although I have the withdrawal crap still going on, I don't want to chance that again. I got through my exercises this morning okay with nothing and then went to rehab this afternoon where I spent at least 15 minutes ...you guessed it...bawling my eyes out with all my craziness (not pain from the work). But, I got through the rehab okay. In fact, while I made no flexion progress on the right knee (still at 92 degrees), I gained 3 degrees flexion in the left moving from 80-83. Nate still thinks we'll hit our end of week goal of 90 degrees in both knees by tomorrow. He thinks I've made great progress, that I'm tough, and he guarantees me that I'm going to be successful. I pray that he's right. I'm not feeling too tough right now. I have some stretching to do tonight and I'm crossing my fingers that will help. Not to mention, I got through this with only the 2 regular strength tylenol that I took prior to going.

All this said, I'm not sure I've totally reconciled my plan. For sure though, no more narcotics. My friend Nurse Sebbie who is fine with me calling her at 2 AM, suggests that perhaps I should consider taking the ultram twice a day, at 8 AM and 8 PM. This non-narcotic pain med would be more like a super strength motrin with the anti-inflamatory benefits and the advantage of some pain relief. Taking at 8/8 would get me through rehab and the first part of the night.\

Last night didn't get really bad until about 1:30 this morning. My legs just burned like crazy, but they weren't that crazy pain that I had right after the surgery. If they burned like that 24/7 I might think differently, but early this morning I th0ught, Ok, if this is as bad as it gets, I can handle it.

I say this now, but believe me, I've had times today when I told mine brither that I just wanted to curl up and die. Some non-positive times when I had fears that I will never get better and that my knees will be like this forever and I'll be walking with a cane forever. Poor Rick. He had no idea what to say, but he did offer his broad shoulder to cry on. On reflection, that was probably the best thing! LOL

A Giant Step Backward

Last night around 11 I started throwing up and 4 hours later was still at it. Poor Brent, I think by that time I'd gone through my last nightgown and he had a set of sheets in the washer. I don't think I've ever been so sick. After a call to my primary dr. and a 2:00 a.m. call to Sebbie, we were taking off for the ER. It only took 3 attempts to get the IV in, but then they were able to take take blood, give me fluids, something for the nausea, and something for the pain in my knees. Unfortunately I had taken my drugs around 10:45 and 4 hours later still couldn't keep anything down, let alone more drugs. They also did a CAT scan to make sure there were no blood clots. While I would suggest this is just purely covering their butt, it is nice to know that there wasn't any such problem.


The real issue now is a diagnosis. While it may be something I ate (Rick ate the same lunch and Brent ate the same dinner and they weren't sick), it very probably could be the drugs. Brent asked the Dr. if it's possible that I had been taking them for 3 weeks with no problem to now all of a sudden have a problem. The answer was an unequivocable "yes."


So now what to do. Our family dr. who wrote the most recent scripts isn't in the rest of this week. We have a call in to the surgeon. This is one of the problems we've encountered when dealing half in-area and half out-of-area. But in the meantime, my knees hurt/burn (although not as much as I expected them to) and time is a-ticking for rehab. One of the deals with the meds is that they get you through the rehab so you can push it hard. Since we didn't get home until almost 9 this morning, we called and rescheduled today's rehab for tomorrow. I've got to keep these knees moving, but I gotta tell ya, I'm just beat and they burn. I'm on a clear liquid diet for 24 hours (not that I feel like eating right now). But the big issue right now is what can I do to keep progress moving forward while we struggle to get someone to deal with the med issue?

I generally look for something humorous or funny to write about, but right now I'm having trouble finding something upbeat. My poor husband is dead tired not having slept in over 24 hours and is off to fill an anti-nausea script and buy clear stuff at the store. I've just about lost my voice (which could be a blessing for Brent), and I really just want to cry. But, that never gets me anywhere so I've gotta let the cobwebs clear, be thankul things aren't worse (like kidney damage from the drugs), and figure out WTH I do from here. I hate it when so much is out of my control.

Big Day

Well, my babysitter changed today. Mine brither who wubbers me, Rick, will be coming each morning helping me get ready for the day, getting me to rehab, and taking over all the normal day-to-day drudgery. Wow! What a great vacation week he's gonna have.

I was concerned about how my rehab results would go since we got through the weekend. I faithfully did my exercises, so I was hopeful. Wahoo! My right knee is now at 92 percent and the left is at 80. The goal is to get that left one to 90 degrees by the end of the week. We also did some walking and using a cane. I will graduate to the cane at rehab and around home, but will still need to use the walker outside.

Today was my birthday and Kera went all out. She oganized the celebration at my house, lugged all the food and gathered the family. Dinner was really yummy, and she made one of her famous cakes (chocolate with peanut butter icing) and decorated it with the cricut. It was awesome! Thanks to Kera and the rest of my family, it was a good birthday.

Muddling Along

Jayne left on Saturday and we wondered how we would get along without her. I'm sure she was happy to get home after working so hard here. Meals, laundry, dishes, rehab, drugs - going home will probably feel like a vacaton.

Brent is hustling to keep up with everything Jane did and all his stuff too. He's doing a good job, but he's one pooped puppy. Loren and Deb made some things easier. Take out Indian for dinner on Saturday lightened his load a bit. Deb took on lunch duty Sunday so Brent and Loren could go on a very long, very hot bike ride. Deb made this tasty grilled chicken salad with all sorts of goodies on it. Feta, Crasins, grapes, walnuts.....mmmmm....so much better than those crappy salads Brent tries to jam down my throat every day.

We're doing okay, muddling along, with loads of thanks to our friends.

I Like to Move It Move It!

I feel like a kid at the carnival, you know, where you throw the darts and try to break the balloons. The more you break, and if you break the right colors, the bigger and better the prize. Today I tossed the yellow dart for the right knee's score and landed a 1 degree increase from 85 to 86. With the green dart I netted a 12 degree increase from 62 to 74, and that's the bad knee.

I was pretty nervous since the staples came out yesterday. No matter what reassurances I received telling me that the knee was healed well enough, I was just as positive that it was going to split open and blood would spurt everywhere. Hehehe, I dream in technicolor! Realistically I knew that everything would be fine, but hey, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a whuss. Nate the PT dude told me that everything would be just fine. We started out stretching, and moved into bending with easy movements before bending it hard with hurty moments. Nate says we're right on schedule for 90 degrees at the end of next week and we began working toward using a cane instead of the walker. I will hate to give up my aligator bike horn but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

My prize for such expertly thrown darts was lunch at Isaacs. After icing my knees and taking a nap (that's the invalid's rendition of watching soaps and eating bon-bons), Jane and I met Diane at Isaacs. Never has a Boardwalk Gull tasted so good.

138 Staples Lighter

Thankfully my family doctor agreed to take out the staples and renew prescriptions, saving me a trip to Allentown. I was a bit nervous about having them removed because as you know, I'm a huge whuss. All the nurses kept filing into my room to look at the beautiful staple artwork on my legs. All the nurses who have looked at my knees have made comments about how great they look - the staples, not my knees...! Anyway, the two nurses decided that they each take a knee. It turned out that the right one had a whopping 71 staples in it; the left a mere 67. Yup, that's 138 staples in my legs. I want to buy stock in that company because my surgeon apparently is known for using gazillions of the little buggers.

Rita's Reward

So many people volunteered to take out my staples. I'm humbled by such generosity :)


The staple crisis has been averted. Amazing what happens when people talk. My surgeon's people talked to my primary physician's people and voila! Staples and meds taken care of. So, tomorrow afternoon I'll look like Frankenstein. At least from the knees down.


Had my first real day of outpatient PT today. It's hard to see progress when you go through this. It must be how anorexic's see themselves. The fact is that as I struggle through the exercises and just daily movement in general, I can't always see improvement. Jayne has been great this week at coaching me through the exercises and mentioning when something looks significantly better. Yesterday she made a comment about a bending exercise and the improvement she was seeing. Well, she was right. At the end of therapy today they took measuremens and you won't believe the improvement since only Monday: Right knee had 65 degree bend; today - 85 degree. Left knee was 52 degrees and today it was 62 degrees. Now that's change I can believe in!

In fact, it's such good progress Jayne's taking me to Rita's this afternoon for a little treat after the next round of exercises today. Who wouldn't be excited about that!