THR A new and improved Cindy?<

[Cindy99]

hi yes I'm a little bit better today although still exhausted. It was chicken from a chicken dinner fundraising church thing, and I just found out that three other people got sick including the woman who brought it to me. She was also violently ill and then very dehydrated and exhausted, so now I know why I've felt the way I have for the past 48 hours . she feels terrible for having brought it to me ! she is a nurse and an perfectly good health, so she was very sad that in my current state I had to deal with something like that

i've been eating a little bit today, soup and crackers. Going to try a sweet potato for dinner . entire abdomen still hurts though .

I think it's going to take a few days to get over . definitely not something I needed on my path to recovery from hip surgery and nothing one would/could even anticipate .

oh well

@wcgirl

 

[MrsHippie]

Oh my goodness! Certainly hope today is a better day!! Sending healing thoughts.

Denise

 

[Cindy99]

@MrsHippie

thanks Denise .

 

[Cindy99]

Graphic Warning

I told this story to someone today who thought that you folks might appreciate it. It's a bit graphic but it's my reality.

Monday morning at 3 AM, the moment at which my food poisoning announced its arrival, as I went down to throw up through the toilet riser it suddenly occurred to me to wonder "can I kneel on my new hip?" In a nano second, out of complete inevitability, I answered my own question by saying to myself "I guess I'll find out."

It turns out I can kneel on my new hip, and even managed to get up without hurting myself.


I'm feeling a bit better this afternoon and about to attempt to eat something slightly more substantial for supper.

Small steps forward.

 

[wcgirl]

You certainly are testing every phase of your recovery whether you want to or not -- and you're like the Energizer Bunny -- you are able to bounce back whatever way you can. I admire you for that. I've had a meal or 2 from well-meaning friends and the spices that i'm not used to nearly set me on fire! I'll be sticking to 'known' meals from now on. Sending you flower power your way.

 

[Cindy99]

all I need now is a fire in the middle the night to test whether I can run on my new hip!

 

[webbie73]

Bite your tongue!!! LOL I do have to admit I have had the same thought......could I run out of the house in case of a fire?

 

[buzzybee]

@Cindy99 - glad to hear you are feeling better after the dreaded lurgy! Not what you want to deal with while
recovering from surgery.
Keep well

 

[Legin]

Really well told and sorry but I did chortle

Legin THR Sep 14

 

[Cindy99]

@Legin that's okay, we all need a laugh. if it didn't hurt so much I'd be laughing too!

insides still aren't happy but I think I'll live. It's just hard to do PT with your entire middle section saying "no, please no!"

 

[Legin]

Sorry it not something to chortle at but you tell it well. Hope you feel better soon

 

[wcgirl]

@Cindy99 -- Good Grief Charlie Brown! But I have to say I've wondered that too…
Hugs to you & stay safe!

 

[Cindy99]

? pain med strategy

to those of you who have been following my food poisoning adventures, I am doing better today. Fingers crossed that it's over! thanks for your concern.

Now I'm asking for help understanding how to develop a pain med strategy. I keep getting conflicting information from the discharge papers from rehab, my PT guy, and my PCP. I have a call into my surgeons nurse, but I thought I would ask you guys for advice as well.

I am on Dilaudid. while I was in rehab we worked out a reasonable system of giving me 4 mg every four hours. That seemed to hold most of the pain at bay. When I left rehab they abruptly told me via my discharge papers and the prescription they gave me to go to 4 mg every six hours. rather then do that I stayed at 4 mg every four hours for a couple of days, then went to 4 mg every five hours for a couple of days and then to 4 mg every six hours.

I then saw my PCP. I asked her for a strategy of using Dilaudid and getting off it. I specifically asked her whether it was best to decrease the amount of the drug first, or the interval at which it was taken. She said decrease the amount of the drug, but that I could play around with it a little bit whatever that means . This directly contradicted what my discharge paper said.

The past four days of food poisoning not withstanding, i'm finding that my pain varies from day today depending on how much activity I have. So should I be changing the amount of the drug or the interval from day to day? is there some kind of schedule I should get on which outlines a goal of getting off the drug ? what pain level should I be expected to tolerate? if I have no pain in the morning, but by afternoon have pain should I start out taking nothing and then take something in the afternoon ?

I just spoke to my PCP's nurse, who spoke to my nurse practitioner, and the answer I got back was clear as mud, again. she said she would be happy to see me in the office to talk about pain management, but I thought I had done that last week, and I have no available transportation to get to her office to discuss this further.

does anyone have any ideas for me? I do not want to get addicted to this stuff. My brain is fuzzy and I don't know how much of it is from this drug.

I really need advice and a plan.

Thanks

 

[Cindy99]

I spoke to a nurse at the OS office, she said pain med management is more of an art than a science. She said it was okay to take 4 mg once and then later in the day only take 2 mg. i'm getting the impression that it's best to stay with the interval static but play around with the milligrams. then later when I've got the milligrams down I can start stretching out the intervals .

does that sound right ?

 

[wcgirl]

i'm getting the impression that it's best to stay with the interval static but play around with the milligrams. then later when I've got the milligrams down I can start stretching out the intervals .

That's exactly how I did it!
I found that I needed pain meds 30 minutes before PT and sometimes when I went to bed at night. I think you will find that you really don't need the 4mg if you are taking Tylenol every 6 hours. I was pretty regular with Tylenol until I had the pain meds worked out.

 

[craftdee]

Hi Cindy @Cindy99 , you sound like you're going really well I'm so used to conflicting advice now that I just make a sort of ledger and pick out what suits me In regard to reducing medication intake; that's how I did it, I lowered the dose then stretched the interval; actually FIRST I increased my activity level while on the original dose, once I was comfortable with that activity/dose combo I lowered the dose then stretched it out.... being medicated adequately in order to elevate your activity is more important than being "off" meds - which comes really quickly in the end; one day you just don't need it!

Another thing I did was what WCGirl did... I added Tylenol in to the mix as a substitute for one of the doses of the "heavier" meds, then two and so on... if you decide to try that, start with one in the middle of the day so that if you run into difficulties you will be aware and can get onto adding some more meds; I actually found Paracetemol (Tylenol) amazingly effective, and it is such a safe drug that "plays well with others" - I used it regularly for a while after leaving all my other meds behind. I still go to it if my tendinitis is being particularly heinous, it works best if you take it regularly - as in three or four times a day as indicated on the pack.

Glad your tummy adventures are a rueful story now, btw

Donna

 

[Cindy99]

@craftdee I like your approach. I was so worried about getting off it because I was given conflicting information that I got hung up in the details. how long were you actually on opiates ?

i've been taking the highest dose of Tylenol for many years ( 3900 mg per day) so that has been part of my cocktail from the beginning. there is a drug they took me off of which I wish I could get back, Meloxicam. apparently it inhibits bone growth which is why they took me off it. I'll have to talk to the surgeon about when I can get it back.

yes, my intestines are arguing with me still because the entire food poisoning thing messed up my anti-constipation routine. I had been doing perfectly with just eating a large bowl of oatmeal each day, but I haven't had that for a week because I didn't think it would be a good thing to dump in my fragile system. So as of yesterday I've had to take laxatives and stool softeners etc. I made a little progress this morning, but my system is still adjusting.

I did start the oatmeal again today hoping that I can get back into a routine.

Argh!! with my luck I'll clog up my own toilet!!

at least my leg is feeling okay. most of the time I'm walking without a crutch. And I'm back to doing PT exercises after severall days absence from them .

does anybody have any ideas about how to tie shoelaces or even how to tightly pull Velcro tabs on shoes?

 

[Great Aunt Janet]

Hi @Cindy99 - glad the food poisoning has subsided, and I hope the pain subsides for you too - lots of good advice, and I'm sure you will find the right balance. You are almost one calendar month post op - anniversary to celebrate - and isn't it better than all the fear beforehand?

how to tie shoelaces

- I do my laces up first and then use a long shoe horn (a ruler might do) to help the shoe on. They are QUITE tight, but I can still push them off.

How is your dog coping with all the changes?

 

[Cindy99]

@Great Aunt Janet Yes! Not knowing was the worst. I was just thinking to myself that I'm going to do a summary of what I've learned through this entire process so that I can have it to refer to next time around. things I needed, things I didn't need, what worked, what didn't work. I hate reinventing the wheel.

I do have a kind of a pain in the front of my thigh about midway down. I don't know if that's where the implant meets the bone or what's going on. It doesn't feel like muscle, it just feels a bit odd. It's not there all the time, only when I walk.

any ideas on what that might be?

My PT guy is coming today, and my big concern is he's going to think I'm functioning so well that he is going to abandon me! then I'll have no visitors!

 

[Cindy99]

@Great Aunt Janet Oh, and thanks for asking about my dog. He's gotten used to being down here in the studio but he still hasn't had a walk since October. I suppose I could move myself back upstairs at this point, but I can't be responsible for trying to get him up and down the stairs when I'm still two-footing it. I think after this is over he may be spending his days down here so that I only have to get him up and down the steps once a day. But we are not quite there yet.

I don't like having him in the studio for two reasons, dog hair in my artwork and also I work with metal and there are sometimes little bits of metal shards all over floor. I suppose I will have to simply clean up after myself faster in order to keep metal out of his paws.