Not to bore you with details but, surgery is over and new knee is in place. Or that's what they tell me. Leg hurts like hell not as much as it did preop, though. Can't bend the damn thing without wanting to puke. How's that for a visual?
Here are some thoughts from the last 10 days:
A girl's best friend through out a traumatic surgery is stool softener. You might think it's her husband (who has been amazing beyond words) or pain medication (that, too, has been wonderfully pleasant) or the fact that I'm pretty much having my every need attended to.
Well, not my EVERY need, thus the need for a stool softener.
I can face every morning with confidence!
CB took me for a walk a couple of nights ago. I think the leash was a joke.
In my walker basket I have beer. Just in case I got too close to the downhill slope in front of the house and took off.
This was my room at Stormont Vail Hospital. If you are in the market for a joint replacement, Stormont Vail is the place for you. EVERYONE, without exception, was wonderful. Even the people who took my food order over the phone and never met me or would ever meet me, were polite and pleasant and laughed at my sense of humor.
I had 2 shifts of nursing care staff: day (7 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and night (7 p.m. to 7 a.m.). Over the next several days I well tell you all about them, but for now, lift them up in your hearts because the job they do day after day and night after night, is nothing short of heroic.
Here's something to think about: I went to the hospital totally hydrated as I was asked. Then, over the course of 12 hours they pumped me full of fluids, huge bags of fluids. Where, I wondered, was all that fluid going to go? Where, indeed.
That's what bedpans are for.
Oh. My. God.
I became very good friends with the nursing staff very, very quickly. Later I was told that I was the best pee'er in the place. My skills with the bedpan left something to be desired, but that's why there's a laundry department, right?
Here's the hallway I would "walk" as many times a day as I could. It seemed like a long distance - - and it was for a post op, overweight, one legged woman!
This is me. Trying to put on a brave face before heading home. I was, if the truth be told, quite nervous.
So, now I'm back. I'll try to begin to post daily again.
I must remember to tell you why I called my doctor a "son of a bitch" right before surgery. Before drugs, too.
And he is.
