5 Days

It's been five days since the surgery and some things have gone much better.

First of all the nausea that I experienced from the anaesthesia the first time was pretty much totally missing as was the amnesia. I remember going into the surgical room and being put on the table and I remember waking up in the recovery room, talking to someone I knew. Lyla is a friend from Garden Club and quilting so that was fun. I went to my room and was alert and knew what was going on. All good things. I wasn't near as amusing to Joe and the daughters but it was a great relief to them that I was so much more aware. My first walk was from one side of the bed to the other about 5 hours after surgery.

As I understand it, the left knee wasn't nearly as bad as the right had been and the length of the surgery was much shorter, recovery too. Even so, I had this little problem of falling asleep unexpectedly--talking, sleeping, watching tv, sleeping. Not much different from my normal Thursday afternoon-evening. However, it is best not to fall asleep with a full glass of ice and pop in your hand. I ended up with a change of clothes and bedding from that.

During my first stay in the hospital, I became over confident and fell reaching for the walker. This time it wasn't my fault. My second walk was to the door of the room and back; all went fine. My third walk was to be much longer and I asked to go to the bathroom first. One PT put a higher seat on the toilet for me and the other one walked me in to the area and I turned around to sit down. The extra seat collapsed under neath me as one leg wasn't correctly attached. I tried to stop falling but ended up on the floor with my walker on top of me and the other PT on top of the walker. I gathered a crowd immediately and didn't get to use my line (I've fallen and I can't get up.) We walked back to bed and that was that. I just couldn't seem to get very far in these walks.

My last walk before dismissal was a ride to the thereapy room where the steps are. I had to be able to go up two steps to get into my house from the garage. It's been difficult to retrain myself as to which is my good leg and which is my bad. For control I have to use the good leg going up and the bad leg going down, the reverse of what I've been doing. At the hospital it was scary but ok. When we got home, it was the hardest part of the experience.