Day 3 started with my waking up due to discomfort at about 4:30am. The previous night, I had decided on sleeping in the Lazyboy in our living room rather than going upstairs to sleep on our bed. Instead of waking my wife up for help (she was sleeping on the sofa in the living room), I decided on taking my Vicodin and sleeping. I was told earlier that it should be taken with food or it may cause nausea. Sure enough, I was feeling nauseated around 5am and this time I woke my wife up to get me out of the Lazyboy. When I tried to stand, like I had done the past couple of days, it was extremely painful – more of a throbbing feeling in the leg (where they made incisions) – so, I sat down again for a bit. It could be the blood that rushed through the leg after keeping it upright for several hours. After a while, I tried to get up again, but the throbbing pain came back. This time, I tried to walk it off. After taking a few steps, I felt dizzy and my wife gave a bar chair for me to sit on. After a little while, I took the anti-nausea medicine and went and fell asleep. Around 10am or so, I was feeling very groggy and I thought I would go take a shower. The throbbing pain came back as soon as I tried to stand. So, I went and laid down on the couch and turned the CPM machine on and dozed on and off until noon or so. I was able to flex about 70% this time in the machine. I was still groggy and eventually got up around 1pm and took a shower. I figured I needed to be careful getting up as whatever nerve blocks/drugs they gave during the surgery had surely worn off! Showering is still a chore!
Rest of the day was uneventful. I was careful getting up but did walk back and forth in our living room for over 10mins. with the help of crutches. Did put full weight a few times with little or no pain or discomfort. Basically, I had to be careful with getting up when it really hurt for a few minutes after which the pain slowly went away and I could essentially walk. Later in the night, did the CPM again for a couple of hours at 70% and felt fine. Did some exercises suggested in the post-op sheet – even though they suggest doing these hourly during waking hours, I probably did it two or three times total. It’s painful and mostly seem to strengthen the hamstring/thigh muscle/etc. and I was in no mood for those.
One big lesson today is not to take Vicodin on an empty stomach and then follow-up with Anti-nausea medicine – that combination really knocked me out and I felt pathetic almost half the day. Tonight, I decided to go upstairs and sleep in our bed. I initially put a pillow under the heel, but it was very uncomfortable. Took me an hour or so to sleep and even then it was quite uncomfortable. However, as the night fell, I was able to settle into a decent sleeping pattern unlike the previous couple of nights.
No comments:
Post a Comment