Revision TKR Lovetocookandsew’s long road to recovery

Thanks, Amy Jo. I haven't lost heart, I'm just frustrated with the whole thing today.
 
Hi KIm. I know it wasn't another TKR but they still had to cut and go in. Each one of my surgeries drained me. The knee wasn't hurting so much but the rest of my body was off. Every time it seemed I was getting my energy back...bam...another surgery. Keep with a healthy high protein diet (helped me). Things will get better:)
 
One month today. The scar is healing well, though the swelling doesn't seem to have gone down much. I'm really hoping the keloid doesn't form again; so far it doesn't look like it will. I've been really tired and dragging the last few days despite sleeping 7-8 straight hours most nights. I still have some pain and take OTC pain relief as needed. Yesterday I walked to my mailbox, stopped to pull a hose out to a young tree to water, and then had to go lie down as I was out of breath and a bit shaky. It's so frustrating to not be able to do anything still. Stripping the bed so hubby could put new sheets on tires me out-it's ridiculous. I know this will get better eventually, but I still have to get through it. I knew I'd have to do some recovery, but didn't think it'd be this bad for this long considering it wasn't a huge surgery.

I am doing fine without a cane and haven't touched it all week. My appetite is still spotty-I really don't feel hungry most of the time, but make myself eat, even though I don't eat very much at a time. Yesterday I didn't feel like eating, so had a small quesadilla at lunchtime as it's something I can eat even if I don't want to eat. I wasn't hungry again until around 9:30 last night, and even then I wasn't very hungry, but ate a small bowl of some navy bean soup. I'm so glad I made so many meals and froze them-it's easy to pull out a vacuum bag of homemade soup and quickly heat it. I can't blame my lack of appetite on pain meds, so I think part of it is I'm not as active as usual, so don't get that hungry as a result.

Overall, I do see some progress with my recovery, but it's really sloooooow........
 

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You are getting there albeit little by little. I always tell my 89 year old dad 'rest before you are tired', and that's what you need to do, even if you are resting a lot of the time.
Hugs from Tabbycat xxx
 
Ahhhhhhh...............I'm in heaven right now. I decided to treat myself and drove the 4 blocks to Starbucks (went through the drive-through to avoid walking and tiring myself too much) for a caramel frappuccino light and am now resting, elevating and icing while enjoying it. :chillpill:
 
Nice!! Love the frappuccinos. For times when you don't have much of an appetite make a protein shake. My son got me some high protein shake mix that I just shake up with some milk. They do hit the spot.
 
I've tried to drink those protein shakes, but just can't do it. I don't like them. I used to make them every morning for my daughters, and sometimes for my husband, for breakfast-they loved them and drank them as they drove to school. I made them with a nice protein powder, fruit, yogurt, etc, and put them in disposable cups with lids so they could toss the cups at school when they were finished. (Their friends would offer to pay me to make them some also, but I didn't take them up on their offers) Anyway, everyone always loves my protein shakes, except me. I like fruit smoothies without protein powder or yogurt, but hate every single protein powder and protein shake there is-I don't even like regular milkshakes. Even with my VitaMix making them so smooth, I just don't like them. I wish I liked them......lol.
 
It's looking like it'll be late July or into August before I feel up to doing any gardening. It'll be hot as heck then, as it always is here, so I may not get in any gardening this season. But thankfully hubby is stepping in and doing it for me. He dug one of our 4 by 4 beds of Yukon Gold potatoes, plus pulled all the turnips a couple of days ago, weeded the beans, trimmed the zen greens, etc. I usually do all that, but am grateful he's doing it. I'll attach a picture of some of our crop of potatoes he dug. I didn't take a picture yet of the turnips, but there are a ton of them! I usually use them while they're still growing, but missed that this year so they were all fully ready and had to be harvested. Since I'm not cooking yet, we'll likely give most of the turnips away. But thankfully the potatoes will last a long time. I really can't wait until I'm fully recovered and take my life back!
 

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Although I wasn't hungry after the wash out surgery I made myself have eggs and sausage for breakfast to get the protein. Then my friends would make food filled with red meat (pasta with TONS of meat) or chicken dumplings with more chicken than dumplings. I couldn't eat much, but it was lots of protein. However, I haven't had chicken dumplings since!
 
Your potatoes look wonderful, your garden is abundant this summer, after the winter rains.
 
Yummy! What time is supper? We have a small raised bed garden and potatoes do very well in it. We also do onions and tomatoes. Nothing like a fresh tomato in a tossed salad!
 
I love tomatoes! We have a large garden, and it's also all raised beds. Plus we do square foot gardening. We didn't do onions for some reason this year-I think we just forgot...lol. We usually do about 24 tomato plants-I didn't plant them this year and haven't counted them, but it's somewhere in that vicinity. We also have a ton of fruit trees, blueberries, raspberries, etc. I haven't taken pictures of the turnips from this year yet, but I'll attach a picture from last year-they're the same Oasis Hybrid turnip variety and look the same...lol. I'll also attach a picture of some tomatoes from last year. I love summer salads-I love being able to walk to my backyard and pick my salad. We've had a garden every year of our 40 year marriage and it never gets old, even though we do.....:rotfl:
 

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Kim, I know that it's important to have protein, but don't worry too much about it. Just eat what you feel like eating for now. Your body will take the protein it needs from all your foods (there is some protein in almost everything) and you can increase your protein intake as your appetite improves.

For about the first month after each of my surgeries, I only wanted soup and toast. Later, I added an egg for breakfast, and built up from there.

I still had good, uneventful recoveries each time.
 
I agree Celle, I don't worry about protein at all (even when I'm eating normally I don't worry about protein). I eat what sounds good right now as I'd rather eat something than nothing. I generally eat a lot of veggies, but even those don't sound that good right now. Seems like all I usually want is soup (minus the toast), and bland stuff....lol. Although I have been craving watermelon.......Too bad it's a little early for those still. I just wish I could eat a little more as I think part of the reason it's taking so long to recover my strength is I do need a few more calories each day. But, in time my appetite will return and I'll start eating more than 600-800 calories a day on average. We're going to roast a bunch of our garden veggies for dinner tonight-we have potatoes, carrots, turnips, golden beets and squash from the garden and we'll add some mushrooms and bulb onions from the store (I can't believe we actually forgot to plant onions this year...lol). I usually love that dinner, so hopefully I'll feel hungry. Thanks for the info!
 
That dinner sounds lovely.

My daughter is vegan, so she eats a plant-based diet, with no animal protein at all. She's done this for the last 8 years, having studied nutrition about it first. She's fit and healthy and every year her blood tests come back 100% normal, with good levels of protein.

I'm a believer in eating what your body tells you it needs (there have been studies on the diet of toddlers which seem to support this). Of course, I have to try to ignore it when my body tells me it "needs" too many sweet things. :heehee:
 
Generally I eat healthily, but last night I gave into a Popeye's chicken dinner! That was not healthy! And today it back to protein drinks and a toss salad minus the tomatoes. I refuse to buy them from the store. They have no taste at all and are terribly over priced. Do you find a problem with an extremely dry mouth? First thing in the mornings I can hardly eat anything at all. It takes a long time to get my mouth wet enough to eat some solid foods. I'm sure it's the medication and right now I'm not willing to give those up just because of a dry mouth!
 

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