This whole recovery thing is like learning to dance.... Three steps forward, two steps back. Remember, Liz, repeat after me.... recovery is not linear! I need a chalkboard so I can write that 50 times a la Bart Simpson!
So if I'm completely honest, for about the past 5 days, I've been feeling a bit of 'malaise'. Usually I get this in the fall/winter when I am about to come down with sinus stuff, cold, or flu. It's nothing more than maybe a hair of fever coupled with a dry throat and nose (gracias a the desert). I haven't thought much of it except that it's annoying.
But now that I noticed the soft spot under my incision ("I shall call him squishy"), I got a little more concerned. As they say about us medical people, a little knowledge, and we're off to the races!
So last night, I woke up, par for course, at midnight - but holy canoli, batman, that knee HURT! It was swollen back to where I was a little over a week ago, and it was quite warm. I also had that skin sensitivity I usually associate with the flu, and a mild headache...but no chills, cough, etc.
I iced and iced - and for some reason, for the first 20 minutes the deep ache was almost unbearable. So I finally took some extra pain meds to see if that would relieve the pain a bit (and maybe knock me back to sleep). Success!
Woke up this morning still feeling like I'm coming down with something, but my squishy seems a wee bit smaller than yesterday. The swelling is still worse than usual (and I did *nothing* even remotely strenuous yesterday - in fact, just iced and elevated, mostly), and my ROM is notably decreased, as would be expected with the swelling.
So since my OS is in the operating room today, I figure I will call and see if I can talk to a nurse or PA just to get some reassurance. Differential #1 is a sinus 'thing' (commonly known as the CRUD in Texas).... Differential #2 would be a reaction to the internal sutures. I had forgotten, but when I had my breast reduction, I had a hyper-inflammatory reaction to the internal sutures and ended up with an inch of itchy, fiery redness on each side of my incisions that required steroids to fix. I've been icing my knee so much, that I could be having a moderated reaction similar to my last one. This, too would create inflammation and some fluid.
Ugh. So back to taking full pain meds again... And a few prayers and pleas to the ortho gods that this just resolves itself. My imagination is just too much for me to handle. As my husband says, I should have been a detective - either that, or have my own soap opera "Days of our Liz"
Once again, thanks for listening to me rant. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled program