Like I mentioned, we are getting some work done at home. We are going to put in a shower stall in our powder room on the main level. We started this work about a month ago, hoping to get it done by the time of my surgery. The contractor promised it will be done by July 4. You guessed it right – the work is not yet complete as of July 22. In the powder room, we had a toilet and a sink, and as of July 22 morning, these are out of order (they were to be relocated). So, I’ve been after the contractor to get the toilet fixed at the very least. A family friend said he will make sure that will be done prior to our return from surgery. We get home by about 10:20am and by the time the toilet was functional it was about 4pm! No sink nor the shower stall – it will probably take a couple more days for these to be complete. Such is life – you may plan as much as you want but there are no guarantees!
I was very groggy and barely made it home on crutches (using them for the first time). I had a glass of water and then dozed off. My wife insisted that I have something to eat and in that daze, I had some cereal and coffee. With the anesthetic and drugs slowly wearing off, I was beginning to feel my leg but still very sleepy. I think I slept till 3:30pm and then was fully awake and alert after that for the rest of the day. I did go and talk to the contractor and had him put up the sink – it’s still not functional since the drain needs to be fixed and he didn’t have the right parts! But the toilet is working!
Surprisingly enough, I did not have any pain whatsoever other than the discomfort due to knee brace, ice pack, bandage, etc. May be I was prepared for a painful recovery. Come to think of it, this is an arthroscopic surgery with four holes and since the bones and ligaments do not give pain, obviously the pain was quite limited and add to that the drugs (Vicodin is what I got) and I was pretty much pain free. The only discomfort was this sensation of "pull" - is it due to inactivity? May be it is the swelling that's causing this sensation. I can't tell from the looks of it (due to all the bandaging, etc.) how bad the swelling is. The "pulling" feeling is similar to when my knee was swollen prior to surgery.
I went and sat in the Lazyboy with my feet up with a few wedge pillows – I remember someone saying that the toes should be above the nose level. That reduced blood flow to the feet causing some discomfort as well – my wife said the foot was cold to touch. She massaged it for a while and it felt much better. In the meantime, the cold pak was on and really don’t have any icy feeling (like burning from ice paks).
The CPM machine guy said I should use the machine for about 6hrs after surgery and my surgeon said that I should only use it the second day for 1-2hrs in all. So, no CPM today. However, I was able to put full weight on my leg - not walk but stand!
I had some light dinner and then went to bed. Going up the stairs was not as bad as I thought it would be, but was still a chore! Lying down on the bed was more uncomfortable then on the Lazyboy chair. So, that's a recommendation for anyone contemplating ACL surgery - get a lazyboy with some wedge pillows. Anyway, couldn’t really sleep all night. I was taking pain meds every 6 hrs and the next one was to be taken at 1am. Since I wasn’t feeling sleepy, I thought I would blog some. Anyways, it was not a good night as the discomfort was persistent throughout the night – not much pain but the bandage, etc. around the knee made it impossible to move the leg and that was definitely the cause for not getting much sleep – added to the fact that I slept until 3:30pm the previous day.
All in all – I am happy with how the things turned out within the first 24hrs of surgery! The biggest surprises are definitely being pain free and being able to stand! In fact, the pain at the time of injury and the following weeks was much more severe than post op pain – at least the first day after surgery.
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