I Survived Surgery!

Before surgery on the top. After surgery on the bottom. The bottom is still very swollen in this image so it might look a little different later on. Since I can't put any weight on it for 3 months I won't know for that long if my knee still works the way it is supposed to and the improvements happened that were planned for.

I went in to the hospital on Thursday March 6th to have my leg straightening surgery (technical name is "high tibial wedge osteotomy") as scheduled. Before going in to the operating room they brought in an ultrasound machine to put a catheter in the nerve in my groin area. This made my whole knee area numb, like getting a shot of Novocaine at the dentist's office. That made the whole experience a LOT less painful.

I woke up in a lot of pain, despite the nerve block. They gave me several different types of IV pain drugs but everything was making me severely nauseous. I actually threw up a couple of times later in that same day. The first 2 days were almost unbearable. The nausea was much worse than the pain and I was so miserable. Eventually, about 48 hours later and with the help of 2 anti-nausea drugs, I was able to start taking oral pain drugs. I normally take 20 mgs of Methadone for long-term pain management but in the hospital they broke it into 7.5 mgs every 8 hours. That helped ease the trauma on my stomach.

The first couple of days were rough emotionally too. As many people know, it is almost impossible to get any rest in a hospital. The lack of sleep, stress of being operated on, pain, effects of pain drugs, nausea and my own emotional struggles all conspired against me for a bit. I was at least able to explain to some of the nurses that I suffer from such severe anxiety that it can make me irrational at times. They were very understanding. I also told them straight out that I was afraid my reactions to the anxiety would get me kicked out of the hospital again. Several nurses and aides went out of their way to reassure me that wasn't going to happen this time. That made me feel a little bit better.

Saturday morning was a new day and a totally different experience from that moment on. I got some good sleep Friday night and my nausea was almost completely under control. I had some fruit and toast for breakfast that stayed down and my outlook was greatly improved. By Monday morning I was doing so well they were ready to let me go home.

I can't put any weight on my right leg for 3 months. For the first 3 weeks I have to use a Continuous Passive Motion machine for 6 hours a day. I also have a Physical Therapist coming to my house for the next several weeks. Right now I can only do things like move my foot around and slowly bend my knee. Eventually we will be working up to more difficult stuff.

Been home now for about 5 days and really starting to get antsy. I can't do much except lay down with my leg up to keep the swelling down and spend 6 hours per day in the CPM machine. Today was the first day that the swelling was down enough for me to post to the blog. Hope to write more again soon!

You can find my journey in photos here.