Day 13 post-op

Its been 13 days since I had my total knee replacement surgery. Here is how this is working out:

On April 10 I reported to the hospital at 7 a.m., which is too early for a person like me. I went into surgery around 10:15 and I don't know when I got out.

Surgery was a little different than I expected. In the past, for the arthroscopic procedures, I was put under with general anesthesia. With the knee replacement I was given a nerve block in my left thigh followed by a sedative. Once in the operating room I was given a spinal. Considering that I refused the spinal when I gave birth, that was a new experience for me. I wasn't prepared for the side effects of the spinal or how long they would last.

From what Dan said, the surgery went fine. The doctor did have to change the size of the prosthetics in the middle of the surgery. I'm wondering if the extra steps involved in changing that has contributed to my pain. If you've watched any videos of total knee replacement surgery then you know its pretty violent. If extra work had to be done, I can't imagine it made it any less painful.

As promised, it wasn't long after I was in a room before I was up and using the restroom. Here's where that spinal was annoying. It affected how I used the restroom for quite a while post surgery. Having to think about which muscles I needed and how much time I needed to plan in order to get to the restroom threw me off.

I only spent one night in the hospital and it was a rough one. I was pretty miserable with pain that wasn't well-controlled, nurses not listening when I asked to use the restroom and my regular medications being messed up. When the doctor offered to get me out of the hospital the day after surgery, I wasn't going to say no unless Dan had reservations. The hospital sent me home with plans for a St. Luke's home health nurse and physical therapist to visit.

It is a lot easier for me at home with my own corp of helpers. I think Dan has lost the most sleep since he's the one taking care of everything from getting me up and around, running errands, medication timing, keeping my ice machine running, making sure that the family is taken care of -- plus all of the regular household and homeschooling oversight.

The hospital expects you to have another adult with you at all times during the first two weeks after surgery but its nearly impossible unless you have extra support for that adult too. The second day home, Dan had to call a friend to babysit me while he took Becky to a doctor's appointment. For the most part, he's relied on our kids to make sure I'm ok when he needs to leave the house.

Physical therapy has been the hardest part of the general recovery. I have good days when I feel like I'm making real progress, but then I have days where I'm absolutely miserable. I've gotten to 70 degree flexion so far, but the aftermath of pushing that hard is pretty discouraging.

As for pain management, we strictly followed the doctor's orders which has gotten us into a weird position. The doctor told us to make sure I was taking two pain pills every four hours for the first week after leaving the hospital. When Dan told the surgeon's office triage nurse that we'd run out on a Sunday and asked for a prescription he could drop off and have filled on that Sunday, she told him that I wasn't supposed to be taking the two pain pills that frequently, and that the doctor didn't prescribe them that way (the prescription bottle said what the doctor told us, not what the nurse said). Later, when I called to ask the office triage nurse if I could add acetaminophen to the now reduced Norco prescription in order to get a better grip on the pain, I was told that she'd have to talk to the doctor. When the doctor's actual nurse called me back she seemed to think I had been asking for a higher dose of Norco instead of a higher dose of Tylenol. She was surprised when I explained that with the lower dose of Norco I wanted to add more Tylenol in order to get a better handle on the pain, and that I had never said I wanted more of the narcotics.

Looking forward to the rest of this week: I have physical therapy Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday, I will have the home health nurse here to remove my giant band-aid, staples and sutures. The hope is that with the removal of the staples and band-aid, I'll be able to gain more function in my new knee.