Doing Better
Aug. 1st, 2009 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abracanabrax-posted to Fb/LJ--
I am doing better. Better than I was immediately after surgery, and definitely better than I was at this point in my recovery after my first ACL knee surgery. I have a little bruising in addition to the incision, and some pain, but nowhere near as much as I did last time. I'm not out of my head from pain or painkillers, also unlike last time.
This time, they didn't find any meniscus damage (or very very little) when they went in to do surgery, so everything took the projected amount of time and all they had to do was repair the ACL and take care of some abrasiveness on the underside of my knee cap. I had a cold, so they couldn't put me under general anesthesia like they did last time. The anesthesiologist said it was probably better not to anyway. So I got a spine nerve block and another nerve block on my leg to help with the incision. I was wide awake all the way to the operating room, where they put in the nerve blocks and then gave me a sedative, and I woke up still in the operating room, instead of several hours later in the recovery room. They also sent me home with a fanny pack holding a softball-sized bag of anesthetic that fed an IV line into my leg for the first three days to help get me past the worst of it. Brand name? O-no.
I can get around on my own wearing a thigh-to-ankle immobilizing brace and using crutches, though the brace hurts to wear. I tried to do a little with one crutch so I could carry things with the other hand, and that was not such a good idea. The pain pills are doing a pretty good job of controlling my pain, though alas, they are not super-fun pain pills--I'm neither pleasantly muzzy-headed nor filled with warm fuzzies. I've begun doing the most basic physical therapy exercises: putting my leg up on a chair and letting it hang; and trying to bend my knee without putting any weight on it. They hurt. I cannot bend my leg yet, but the straightening seems to be going well, as it has since I injured my knee.
I'm spending all my time on the couch in the living room, either reading the internet (email, blogs, newsletters, etc.), watching TV, or sleeping. Pain wakes me up when the pills wear off, so I've been sleeping very irregularly at night, and I tend to take 3-4 naps during the day, whenever I get sleepy, which is regularly. I've finished watching all of Criminal Minds on DVD, all of True Blood on DVD, the 2nd-to-last season of Monk, and I'm about to finish the first season of Buffy (rewatch, borrowed from a friend). I'm catching up on my writing newsletters, and I'm pleased that I'm clear-headed enough to actually get some writing-related work (and soon, writing!) done, though I'm cutting myself a whole lotta slack. Did I mention 3-4 naps a day?
WARNING: Beyond this point, there may be TMI and photographs.
This is how they repair a torn ACL when they don't use a donor graft*. The repair itself is done arthroscopically, but they make a four-inch incision down the front of your knee to get a piece of the patellar tendon. They drill it out so that it's still attached to bone on both ends, so you're also missing two large chunks of bones (and those ache for months). Then they drill a hole through your knee (see my user icon!), then yank the tendon through and screw it into place. While they're there, they grind the bone around the opening wide enough to allow the new ligament to move around a bit more, hopefully to keep it from tearing again. Whether or not the new ligament is as likely to tear as the old ligament depends on what mood your surgeon's in when you ask him.
* Sometimes they use the ACL or Achilles' tendon from a dead person; my surgeon doesn't do that. My physical therapist had a patient convinced that her knee was haunted after she did it that way. At least it was a benevolent haunting!
I really am doing significantly better this time around.
Here's the damage last time:
And this time:
(though I am getting a little more bruising developing, it's *nothing* compared to the first set of pictures)
Though the nerve blocks seem to have helped me recover from surgery a lot faster, I wasn't so pleased in the recovery room. Between the painkiller injections (because there was pain) and the anesthetic drip ball fastened around my neck, I was getting enough drugs that I also had an awfully queasy stomach. And I hadn't eaten since midnight the night before (it was by this time about 6 PM), so that really didn't help.
The recovery nurse really wasn't pleased with me. First I ask for more painkiller 2 or 3 times. Then I mention that my stomach is feeling queasy. Then that my gut hurts. After I repeat the last two statements a few times, she asks me if I have to pee. I say that I don't think so, but I can't really tell since everything, and I do mean everything, from the waist down is numb. I can't feel a thing, and it's the weirdest, most unnerving feeling. Remind me not to get a spinal block when I give birth; I can totally see why they lead to a much higher rate of, ah, internal damage.
So the nurse gets this special MRI machine that exists just to determine if a patient needs to pee. It has a big circle and then a smaller yellow circle that expands depending on fluid volume. Weirdest thing. But yes, she tells me that I need to pee, and she's about to go off to get a bedpan when I announce that I'm entirely willing to attempt using the actual toilet, which is a horrifying ten feet away from the chair where I'm sitting. I get knee brace, crutches, and somehow manage to hobble there without undoing the surgeon's good work. I even manage to pee, though I have to force it and position myself very carefully since I can't feel a thing, including the toilet seat. Ugh.
After all that, I'm still nauseated, so I ask for something to settle it. She sorts through the various prescription records and fails to find anything, explains that it will be a pain and a half to get me something, I say probably it's okay, and then change my mind a couple of minutes later. She's on the phone trying to get me a prescription so they can give me something that won't interact badly with what's already in my system when I use my veryurgent voice to ask Phil for the trash can, and then I spew up a small yellow geyser of saltines and water, which is all I've had since midnight the previous day.
Eventually, I get all my pills, my pain's controlled enough, and I have enough feeling back to be discharged home.
For some reason, Phil didn't stop to get me crispy tacos supreme from Taco Bell on the way home, either, even though I was really hungry and I begged him to.... Or on any of the days since, come to think of it. Harrumph.
.
I am doing better. Better than I was immediately after surgery, and definitely better than I was at this point in my recovery after my first ACL knee surgery. I have a little bruising in addition to the incision, and some pain, but nowhere near as much as I did last time. I'm not out of my head from pain or painkillers, also unlike last time.
This time, they didn't find any meniscus damage (or very very little) when they went in to do surgery, so everything took the projected amount of time and all they had to do was repair the ACL and take care of some abrasiveness on the underside of my knee cap. I had a cold, so they couldn't put me under general anesthesia like they did last time. The anesthesiologist said it was probably better not to anyway. So I got a spine nerve block and another nerve block on my leg to help with the incision. I was wide awake all the way to the operating room, where they put in the nerve blocks and then gave me a sedative, and I woke up still in the operating room, instead of several hours later in the recovery room. They also sent me home with a fanny pack holding a softball-sized bag of anesthetic that fed an IV line into my leg for the first three days to help get me past the worst of it. Brand name? O-no.
I can get around on my own wearing a thigh-to-ankle immobilizing brace and using crutches, though the brace hurts to wear. I tried to do a little with one crutch so I could carry things with the other hand, and that was not such a good idea. The pain pills are doing a pretty good job of controlling my pain, though alas, they are not super-fun pain pills--I'm neither pleasantly muzzy-headed nor filled with warm fuzzies. I've begun doing the most basic physical therapy exercises: putting my leg up on a chair and letting it hang; and trying to bend my knee without putting any weight on it. They hurt. I cannot bend my leg yet, but the straightening seems to be going well, as it has since I injured my knee.
I'm spending all my time on the couch in the living room, either reading the internet (email, blogs, newsletters, etc.), watching TV, or sleeping. Pain wakes me up when the pills wear off, so I've been sleeping very irregularly at night, and I tend to take 3-4 naps during the day, whenever I get sleepy, which is regularly. I've finished watching all of Criminal Minds on DVD, all of True Blood on DVD, the 2nd-to-last season of Monk, and I'm about to finish the first season of Buffy (rewatch, borrowed from a friend). I'm catching up on my writing newsletters, and I'm pleased that I'm clear-headed enough to actually get some writing-related work (and soon, writing!) done, though I'm cutting myself a whole lotta slack. Did I mention 3-4 naps a day?
WARNING: Beyond this point, there may be TMI and photographs.
This is how they repair a torn ACL when they don't use a donor graft*. The repair itself is done arthroscopically, but they make a four-inch incision down the front of your knee to get a piece of the patellar tendon. They drill it out so that it's still attached to bone on both ends, so you're also missing two large chunks of bones (and those ache for months). Then they drill a hole through your knee (see my user icon!), then yank the tendon through and screw it into place. While they're there, they grind the bone around the opening wide enough to allow the new ligament to move around a bit more, hopefully to keep it from tearing again. Whether or not the new ligament is as likely to tear as the old ligament depends on what mood your surgeon's in when you ask him.
* Sometimes they use the ACL or Achilles' tendon from a dead person; my surgeon doesn't do that. My physical therapist had a patient convinced that her knee was haunted after she did it that way. At least it was a benevolent haunting!
I really am doing significantly better this time around.
Here's the damage last time:
And this time:
(though I am getting a little more bruising developing, it's *nothing* compared to the first set of pictures)
Though the nerve blocks seem to have helped me recover from surgery a lot faster, I wasn't so pleased in the recovery room. Between the painkiller injections (because there was pain) and the anesthetic drip ball fastened around my neck, I was getting enough drugs that I also had an awfully queasy stomach. And I hadn't eaten since midnight the night before (it was by this time about 6 PM), so that really didn't help.
The recovery nurse really wasn't pleased with me. First I ask for more painkiller 2 or 3 times. Then I mention that my stomach is feeling queasy. Then that my gut hurts. After I repeat the last two statements a few times, she asks me if I have to pee. I say that I don't think so, but I can't really tell since everything, and I do mean everything, from the waist down is numb. I can't feel a thing, and it's the weirdest, most unnerving feeling. Remind me not to get a spinal block when I give birth; I can totally see why they lead to a much higher rate of, ah, internal damage.
So the nurse gets this special MRI machine that exists just to determine if a patient needs to pee. It has a big circle and then a smaller yellow circle that expands depending on fluid volume. Weirdest thing. But yes, she tells me that I need to pee, and she's about to go off to get a bedpan when I announce that I'm entirely willing to attempt using the actual toilet, which is a horrifying ten feet away from the chair where I'm sitting. I get knee brace, crutches, and somehow manage to hobble there without undoing the surgeon's good work. I even manage to pee, though I have to force it and position myself very carefully since I can't feel a thing, including the toilet seat. Ugh.
After all that, I'm still nauseated, so I ask for something to settle it. She sorts through the various prescription records and fails to find anything, explains that it will be a pain and a half to get me something, I say probably it's okay, and then change my mind a couple of minutes later. She's on the phone trying to get me a prescription so they can give me something that won't interact badly with what's already in my system when I use my veryurgent voice to ask Phil for the trash can, and then I spew up a small yellow geyser of saltines and water, which is all I've had since midnight the previous day.
Eventually, I get all my pills, my pain's controlled enough, and I have enough feeling back to be discharged home.
For some reason, Phil didn't stop to get me crispy tacos supreme from Taco Bell on the way home, either, even though I was really hungry and I begged him to.... Or on any of the days since, come to think of it. Harrumph.
.