@Hippie Chick @SurreyGirl - Thank you both for your kind thoughts'.
Unfortunately yesterday, which started so well turned out to be my worse day pain wise post op ! The morning was really good, it was my husband's return to work day, which meant that instead of following me around like a shadow he decamped to my eldest son's bedroom which has become his temporary office while my son is in Australia. So I was preparing my breakfast, doing some washing up etc just feeling really good in general about being 2 weeks post op and clip removal day.
My first mistake was trying to adjust my too tight compression sock myself, of course to do that I had to bend forward - bang went the 90 deg. rule. Luckily I got a sharpish twinge to the front of my hip before I went too far into the 90 deg. but I just can't believe that I tried to do that. After that I took it easy as I didn't want to aggravate my hip anymore but I did carry on getting strange twinges in my buttock for several hours afterwards.
My next mistake was my choice of transportation to my doctors. I could have returned to the hospital to have my clips out but because our car has really low seats and I have real trouble getting in and out post op I thought it would be easier to hire a wheelchair and my husband push me to the doctors surgery which is under 20 minutes walk away. I didn't realise until too late that the seat of the wheelchair wasn't very firm even with a cushion on it and I found that as the journey progressed I was sinking in the middle of the seat which caused my op side knee to turn inwards, this was not helped by the fact that the foot rests could not be adjusted low enough for me to rest my op foot on without raising my knee higher than my hip. What made it worse was that the pavements were in such a bumpy state that every jolt of the wheelchair was causing me pain.
The actual clip removal itself was fine, I had taken extra pain relief beforehand just in case, but there was only the tiniest bit of discomfort with certain clips. The nurse said the wound was nice and clean and healing well. She also suggested using vaseline on the wound to help flatten it.
My final mistake was not ditching the wheelchair for my return journey home ( I sometimes wonder about my decision making ability since having the op) It was a sightly improved journey home as I used my cardigan as a cushion to help keep my knees apart and pointing forward and I also removed my thick soled shoe on my op side which made it easier to rest my foot on the foot rest. But as soon as I got home I went straight to bed and stayed there for the rest of the day. The pain was low to medium level until the pre clip removal pain relief wore off and then it was suddenly like falling off a cliff, I could not believe how quickly it changed, it was so bad I was afraid to move in case I made it worse. I can't believe how easy it was to cause myself so much extra pain but the worst of it is that I feel I have set myself back on my recovery journey.
United States
