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Josephine
pain meds...have been taking one percoset 5-325 at night. That has been all I have needed. Have tramadol 50 mg to use as needed and I used it today.

Walking has been between 7000 and 9500 steps a day which is more than double what I had been doing. Realized I had worn sandals yesterday at work...won't do that again. They don't have enough padding.

I generally elevate and sometimes ice when I get home for an hour or two.

Today I used the walker at work, iced once for 20 min or so and did as little walking as possible. Knee calmed down some so I will continue that program. Will also get what rest I can this weekend...unfortunately my 92 year old dad was admitted to skilled nursing care today so I will be going to see him each day after work till he is out.

Will try to figure out how to elevate at work and take in whatever I need to do so next week. Am remaking my ice packs this weekend so I can have two of them at work.

Am trying to avoid NSAIDs because my blood work prior to surgery was borderline for kidney problems and one kidney felt swollen. Did lots of fluids and cranberry and it calmed down.

Have the normal cooking, shopping, watering gardens stuff after work and will short cut where I can.

Think you are probably correct and I have overdone it and am searching for ways to cut back where I can. Made an appt with my surgeon for next week to check knee if it is still flared up. I am beat tonight after being at the hospital with dad for the last 5 hours...admissions from the ER is very slow...night and thanks so much.
 
So sorry to hear about your Dad nmscienceteacher, that sort of emotional trauma can drain anyone.

I understand about the NSAIDs.. Check out my signature.. My kidney function was reduced from 100% to 41% in the space of a few months taking them. Now I am under the care of a Renal specialist, my kidney function will never recover and he has told me who knows what the future is... but I am never allowed to take NSAIDs ever again, not even one!

I was the ice pack queen of my surgery timeframe.. Took them everywhere.. Still have a couple at work just in case :)

Take care of yourself, do just the necessary tasks and leave the rest until you are stronger and more recovered.
 
My sympathies about your father also. That's not something you can avoid seeing to, is it?
nmscienceteacher said:
pain meds...have been taking one percoset 5-325 at night. That has been all I have needed. Have tramadol 50 mg to use as needed and I used it today.
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I would recommend you take the Tramadol instead of the Percoset. And with the 50mgs also take 1,000mg of Tylenol. I think you'll find it's a lot more effective.
nmscienceteacher said:
Walking has been between 7000 and 9500 steps a day which is more than double what I had been doing. Realized I had worn sandals yesterday at work...won't do that again. They don't have enough padding.
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Walking too much in sandals can stress your quads nicely! Sandals create a whole different dynamic than shoes. If you must wear them, make sure they don't flop about as you take a step. That's what does the damage. I always wear backless sandals all summer but this year I got a pair with a little strap around the big toe. What a difference that made! I could actually walk properly and not struggle to keep the sandal on my foot! Another feature is to make sure the uppers come well up the instep for similar security.
nmscienceteacher said:
I generally elevate and sometimes ice when I get home for an hour or two.
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If your knee (or quads tendon) is warm or hot, always ice.
nmscienceteacher said:
Am trying to avoid NSAIDs
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Very wise and something I recommend for even for those who appear not to have kidney issues. Trouble with it is that it can sneak up on one and may have little in the way of obvious symptoms. And when they do become noticeable, the damage is already done. It's for this reason that many GPs in the UK are now very leery of prescribing NSAIDs of any type except for very short periods of perhaps a week. Read this NSAIDs, acetaminophen (Tylenol, paracetamol) differences and dangers.
 
nmscienceteacher What a week. I'm so sorry to hear about your father-- I hope he will recover quickly :)

Also sorry about the knee pain, and it sounds like you've got a plan of treatment all lined up-- keep us posted!

Your class sounds like a veritable United Nations! I loved your comment about "how small they are at the beginning of the year". Small enough to still have to look up to you....:yes:
 
Ah my Duke city friend, glad to hear you ate back to work. Not so glad about the pain that you are having. I pray that all goes well with you dad. Peace be with you
 
nmscienceteacher How are you? Did your knee settle down? You've been on my mind and I wondered if you were doing better and if you had taken a few days off work for the knee to settle down?

You're in my prayers.
 
Hi, nmscienceteacher ... I'm very sorry about recent events ... your dad. And your rough ride at work. Boy, your job sounds tough for someone trying to recover from this surgery. I doubt I could be "on" and on my feet and about, as you are doing. I hope things are going a little better. Please know we are all thinking of you and sending our best wishes and hopes for you, and your dad, and look forward to hearing how everyone is when you are able to post.
 
Saw my OS on Thursday and he assured me that my knee is okay...but I am doing far too much and it is rightfully complaining to me. sigh...I have to admit that I thought that after 9 months it would be farther along than it is. I guess having the hip done barely 7 months after the knee was tougher on me than I thought. I am not quite 3 months out on the hip at this point. I have started to sit more and try to get my walking at work under 5000 steps a day. I managed that on Friday and have to admit I have a bit more energy when I get home if I can hold down the activity at work. I am also trying to remember to ice the knee once a day to see if that will help. Am back on ibuprophen twice a day as per dr's request.
My days have been dreadfully long...hit the ground running at 5:30, work till 4 at school, drag home make dinner and rush to the rehab to spend a bit of time with dad and get him ready for bed...find I am dragging home around 9 in bed by 11 and repeat the whole thing the next day. Guess it is a bit much for me. My knee is pretty swollen and stiff by the end and I am in pain. The only thing I can really change is try to walk less at work and make sure I take time to ice.
The energy drain of returning to work has been tough to deal with. I think this year is particularly hard because of the high level of tension around the school. The new evaluation system we are under at work is frightening. It looks as if we can be fired within 90 days if they deem us unsatisfactory. It doesn't exactly leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling about teaching. I wonder if the general public has any idea how much fire teachers are under. I realize their are bad teachers but this feels as if we are all being labeled bad teachers until you prove day after day that you aren't. The proof is endless hours put into filling out mandatory cumbersome lesson plans that really don't make your lessons more effective. I wonder how our surgeons would function if they had to fill out 10 hours of paperwork that detailed their planning and preperation for each surgery before they could do the surgery? I think I put about 15-20 hours into writing the first unit plan which covered the first two weeks of school. I don't know how I am supposed to keep that up all year and have time to grade papers and give individual feedback...oh well. Every profession has its problems. I feel an overwhelming urge to nap....so zzzzzzzzzzz
 
The nap got put on hold in favor of picking a colander full of two kinds of parsley, and two kinds of sage to dry. I also picked tomatoes, some green chili, and several bunches of grapes. The gardens look a bit end of season scruffy right now, but they have a lot of produce in them! Makes for some good eating.
 
Three month update from an unusually wet New Mexico....our state has been hit hard with record rain and we are flooding all over the place! Saw my surgeon this week and he did X-rays on the new knee and hip to make sure there is bone growth happening. Everything looks good and I feel I am doing pretty well given my difficult circumstances.

My dad is out of the hospital but can no longer be home alone at night...and actually we were told not to allow him to be alone at all. He has now been moved in with us nights and goes to his house days. We have left a few hours in the day when he doesn't have coverage so he gets a little privacy. It has been an interesting week. We now have both our fathers in the house. One is 86, the other is 91 and both have had strokes. I had two nights in a row when my sleep ended at three am...dad had major accidents in the bed and I was cleaning him up, changing multiple layers of bedding and trying to keep my sanity. The second night it was almost comical because of the chain of events that unfolded...dad had diarrhea at 3...took me till 4 to clean it and him up...I dozed off at 5:30, got up at 6, dad in a worse bout by 6:20, my father in law up sans pull up with sopping bed at 6:30. I was running around with two old men on toilets and two totaled beds...my hubby said should He just call in sick? I shoved him out the door to head for work...changed beds, cleaned old men, got them back to bed, called to say I would be late to work. Got dressed, got lunch went to feed hens...and they were looking in the back slider at me! Hubby had forgotten to close coop door and they were enjoying a run in the yard...I thought oh %+^*# but fortunately I am the treat lady and they all followed me to the coop for treats and I got them in. Made it to work only a couple of minutes late...135 sixth graders sure looked easy to me after my night job!

I am hopeful that after an adjustment period my dad will settle in and life at the "WWII old shits home" will settle into some sort of bearable normalcy. This isn't particularly conducive to restful recovery for me but sometimes life hands us unexpected challenges and we just have to deal. My surgeon wants me to wait about six more weeks before I start back with my trainer and given how much lifting and assisting of old men I am doing I am willing to hold off on working out. My new hip is pretty good...just the normal 20 feet of so of wobbly walk after sitting and occasional pain...the left knee (now 10 months old) is still hot just below the knee cap, hurts frequently, and swells up every time I go much over 6000 steps in a day...which is almost every day. Elmore oil is definitely my friend!

All in all I am doing well and am beginning to deal with the emotional side of our new life...loss of privacy, loss of freedom, inability to go eat out etc. I think we will have to schedule an occasional night out and hire respite care so my husband and I don't forget there is an "us" in the mix. I am hopeful my knee will settle down a bit and I will get a bit more bend and more strength in it. I keep thinking of the "patience grasshopper"picture I have seen posted over on the knee side...and Poppet saying she thinks of recovery in terms of two years. Those thoughts give me hope.
 
Haven't been on the forum in quite a while...life has been too full. I am on round two of dad collapsing (cause still unknown), being unresponsive for close to two hours this time, being hospitalized for close to a week and now back in rehab. Dont know how long he will be in rehab. Am sure the nursing home discussion will come up again...and am not sure where we will end up. He really wants to be back in his home and has started to adjust to being in our house at night. However the added work for me ( changing bed multiple times a week, and sometimes per night, and cleaning him up from his frequent accidents) has taken a tole on me.
Saw my surgeon this week and he isn't terribly happy with me, or with my progress. I am currently having a fair amount of pain in the thigh near the top and mid way down the leg in the front. It is bad enough that I limp really badly for the first 50 feet or so. He is pushing cane at all times...thought I would be rid of the damn thing at almost 5 months!...and doing less. (Haven't figured out that part at all) He made reference to revision surgery not being a happy alternative for me if I wreck this surgery and I am taking his warning pretty seriously since he has never said anything like that to me.
His nurse suggested we put dad in a hospital bed at home so I can raise the bed to a better height when I have to change it. She pointed out that I am torking myself pretty badly man-handling the bed around when I change it. She also said I really need to take a hands off approach when assisting him. I had been helping boost him up in the bed by grabbing under his shoulder and pulling with his caretaker to get him positioned in the correct place in the bed...that has come to a halt. I think the hospital bed is a good option since the mattress he has is terribly heavy and awkward to make up...it is at least 15 inches deep and weighs a ton! So I will start looking into that...and we may really have to consider the nursing home option after this rehab if he can't stand well enough to hold his own weight and transfer from bed to walker or wheel chair.
I feel as if my progress has ground to a halt! If I consistently walk over 5000 steps a day I am swollen and beat. Weight limit for carrying things seems to be a moderate grocery bag full. Start up walking continues to be a big problem. I did start back on Magnesium and it seems to be helping with the pain. Haven't done any rehab and wonder if mild exercise would help strengthen the muscles but I am a bit scared to add in more at this point. The surgeon did say I could rejoin the gym and do some moderate recumbent biking and get in the pool and take it slowly, but start swimming. Trying to figure out how to arrange my life so I can do some exercise...something will have to give somewhere!
Feeling unusually down and discouraged for me. If any of you have any suggestions throw them at me...I could use some help.
 
nmscienceteacher I am so sorry for everything you have been going through! Years ago, when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers' & I planned to stay home and take care of her - a wise physician told me that there WILL come a time that I no longer feel I can do it. He advised to take some time and think about what those triggers would be. When we hit those triggers, it made the decision to put mom in a skilled facility easier. Not saying it was easy, but it was the right thing to do for her, for me and for my family. She has since passed away, and I am glad that I took care of her when I did but also glad, for my own health and sanity, that she went to live in a facility. Think of it this way - this is not only affecting you physically and mentally but your husband, your family - if there are any in close proximity. I am not on this board as much as I used to be . . . a sign of progress I guess. I am hoping that you can get your start-up pain under control, but it sounds like you have enough going on in your life without adding additional exercise to the mix. My recommendation is to have a serious conversation about a nursing facility! Hugs!
 
Oh nmscienceteacher you have had some problems, it's really hard when our parents need so much help. I ended up letting my mum go into a nursing home, it filled me with guilt, and still does, but she had dementia and deep, deep down, I know it was the right decision for both of us. I hope you will take care of yourself and make sure that you are not hurting your own recovery, I'm sure your dad wouldn't want that. I'm not sure that any more exercise is what you need at the moment, maybe some more relaxing and pampering is what's called for. Take care x
 
nmscienceteacher I don't know how you do all that you do and hold on to a shred of sanity, especially while dealing with your own physical issues. Many years ago (I was about 35) I took care of my mother in the final months of her life and her battle with cancer. It took every ounce of my strength, even at that young age, and it hugely impacted my ability to function on my job, and seriously impacted my marriage. It was completely overwhelming, both from the physical and emotional standpoints.

There is only so much you can do in one day, and you can't heal if you never get any rest What will happen to everyone if you DO end up having to have a revision? Perhaps it IS time to seriously consider other options for your dads. Perhaps a nursing home is the nly solution, even though that decision is so hard. You can't keep up this pace -- there's a point where you have nothing left for yourself and life becomes one big drudgery of cleaning up after people and changing beds, and you have to consider your own health and well-being.

I hope you find something workable that does not leave you so exhausted. It is SO hard when a parent is ill or frail.

I am having my second hip done at Presbyterian on Monday, October 28. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers for safe surgery and healing. I hope you are feeling better soon.

Peace and love to you.

Milli
 
nmscienceteacher.....I know what you're going through. Years ago, I had to take care of both my parents. My dad died in January and he had been mom's sole caregiver as she had dementia and needed full time care. I stayed with her for several months, but eventually had to go back to my own life. It was just more than I could handle to care for her, do my job from her house and try to maintain my marriage. I found a good place for Mom and she was happy there with people looking out for her. I visited every day, and that was so much easier than doing full-time care.

Several years afterwards I helped two friends go through similar situations with their parents. What I learned is this:

You can look at a nursing home two ways. Yes, you can assume the "guilt" that you had to place your parent there because the caregiving was just more than you could handle. Or you can decide that a nursing home will allow you and your Dad to have quality time together. If you look at the quality of your relationship with your parent under the 24/7 caregiving role, most of your time is spent in just that - giving care. It's not particularly enjoyable for either of you. If you do your research to find a good nursing home with excellent staff to take over that caregiving role, then you are free to make your Dad's life more enjoyable (and yours too). Your precious hours can be spent visiting, talking over old times, doing special things for him, and all the things you can't do when you are responsible for all aspects of someone's life. So, please consider this and think maybe it is time to be able to devote quality time to your Dad.

As for the comments your surgeon is making about a revision......normally a revision is not caused by something the patient does. Granted, you should NOT be doing this heavy lifting and activity you are having to do with your dad. And while it may delay your recovery, cause you extra pain and swelling and suffering, it should not result in the need for a revision. So, don't let yoursel be guilted that way either. You do need to slow down and focus on your recovery, though.....he is right about that. And he's right about using the cane if you are limping. It's not a matter of months out from surgery for you because you have been pushing yourself to the point where you're slowing your recovery. This is a time where you need to put yourself first. It's the only way you'll heal and be the person you want to be down the road to those you love.
 
nmscienceteacher, I so liked Jamie's comment "Or you can decide that a nursing home will allow you and your Dad to have quality time together" if you can arrange it, you will be able to give yourself some dedicated recovery time and time with your Dad will be special too... Good luck :)
 
Wouldn't your Dad want you to focus on recovery? Sure he's having a rough time now but I certain he would want you to get to a better place. I agree with Jamie, quality time with your Dad would benefit both of you!
 
Hi, nmscienceteacher ... I am SO sorry for the situation you are faced with. I am appalled at how your surgeon expressed his concerns, and hope that you are reassured by what Jamie said. Still, you are doing an incredible amount of lifting and overall activity, much more than most of us, so I can see why your OS is concerned. I'm not walking in your shoes, so I can only imagine how hard this is, especially while trying to work full time at a teaching job and recover from this surgery. I think the advice others have given you about your father and the nursing home giving you and he better quality time together is spot on. Also, your hip is really the decider in all of this. While the revision scare story might not be accurate, continuing to overdo things as you have had to do will ultimately not be good for you or your father or anyone. I hope you continue to read and post here, as we all care and want to help you through this in any way we can.
 
I have never been faced with your situation but I know it will be coming at me down the road, so for now I'll be thinking about you and hoping for all the best...it has to be hard. Take care of yourself so that you can be there for Dad.
 
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