Looking back over my posts here and thinking about it as if I were watching someone else go through this, it just makes me sad. The process of recovery has enough struggles without added questions of whether I am safe, cared for, the desperate need to keep track of time so they don't "forget" to give me my pain medications on time, etc.. It just really didn't need to be like this.
I should be talking about my recovery, about my knees! As I said before, I didn't expect not to be able to move my legs at all. That really scared me. If the zombie apocalypse began, I'd be among the first to be eaten! ;-) So, that inability to care for myself made me deeply regret having both knees done at once. Especially when I saw how much easier it was for the 1-legged folks, having an actual "good leg." Various instructions in how to do things include "lead with the good leg" or "up with the good leg, down with the bad." My choice of good VS bad seemed rather arbitrary but then I had the fear, the feeling like my knee cap would shoot off if a person holding my left leg let go before that foot was firmly on the floor. (It amazed me how many times people let go of the leg in mid-air even as I pleaded "Don't let go, OHMYGAHPLEASEDON'TLETGO!" as they reassured, "I won't let go!" ...and they let go.) Left, left was my "bad leg."
I want to share a couple tips here. While I was still in the hospital and making my first transfers, I was told to keep one hand on the thing (chair, bed, walker) I was moving from and the other hand on the thing I was moving to. This seemed like good, solid advice assuring I was close enough to both to make a safe transfer. However, in the several days after, I kept finding myself having more or less difficulty/pain in moving from one thing to another. And I could not figure out why something I could do on my own with minimal pain at x o'clock but, an hour later, required two attendants to haul me over the transition point between down and up. If I'd had someone there with me who wasn't on mind-altering pain meds, I would have asked them to watch me move and try to see what made the difficult transitions difficult. I did finally realize that keeping one hand on the (lower) commode armrest and the other hand on the (much higher) walker handgrip lead to my need to have two attendants launch me upwards to the point where I could move the lower hand up to the walker. That was not a smooth transition at all. But when I forgot the one hand on each thing, used both hands/arms to raise myself to a stand, quickly found my balance, and put my hands on the walker, everything worked much better and with minimal pain.
I'm hoping the huge long "tip" above makes sense? To simplify, if you find movements or transitions are sometimes more or less painful, inconsistent, try to figure out what you are doing differently.
Another tip: Grabbers and call buttons! If you have bilateral TKRs and find yourself spending a bit of time in a wheelchair after, use your grabber or call for assistance if you drop something. Don't reach forward and out to pick up your dropped keyboard or you could be doing a forward-tipping wheelie, with your call button totally out of reach. ~whistles innocently~
To wrap up this I'm feeling chatty moment, my knees are looking AWESOME! My incisions were glued and then 1" mesh tape glued the length of the incisions and slightly beyond the ends. I don't currently have picture-taking capabilities so will have to wait a little bit more to share. They're feeling pretty good too. I mean, there's pain but it's mostly in bursts as I move around. Still have swelling, though it responds to elevation and massage. I will definitely be icing more once I'm home. Also going to try ace wraps on and off. I have no idea what my ROM numbers are right now and I don't think I care a whole lot. I do my elevating and massaging and, when I sit up, I'm doing heel taps and gentle slides and a couple other gentle things. It will come.
Hey, OT is here to DISCHARGE ME! WOOT!
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