Dear Friends, I apologize for not being present for the past few days. It's been just one thing after another, and not all knee related. Some of you may know that I work with animal rescue, cats especially. My son and I volunteer at the County Animal Shelter. He is 22 years old, autistic and developmentally delayed, but among his many gifts and skills, he is a natural cat whisperer. I might add that since I had my knee surgery, he has really stepped up his game at home-does laundry, dishes, prepares simple meals, feeds the animals, cleans kitty litter boxes, vacuums, cleans bathrooms--does pretty much anything needed,and if he doesn't understand how to do a task,he asks for help, learns it, and adds that task to his repertoire of things he can do as well. But he has to be asked to do everything. Between him and my husband, I have survived the first two awful weeks after my TKR in relative luxury. I also have a 17 Year old son, academically and musically brilliant. But not at all motivated to help around the house. He's a great kid, just passed his AP Calculus and English tests, and scored in the 96th percentile in his SAT, but he's as disorganized as all get out, and could not navigate his way out of a paper bag. His room? OMG! Truly a mine field, too dangerous for me to go in there with my Walker, and I wouldn't even think about going in there without taking a gun and a shovel with me! Plays the clarinet in his school's marching band, and even though he's only just about to enter his senior year in high school, he just completed an advanced piano class at our local community college. I share all of this because my being laid up has definitely changed the dynamics in my household. My family has started to notice that with my being unable to do a lot of the things normally I do, the house doesn't run itself and the animals don't take care of themselves. Clean laundry doesn't miraculously show up in one's bedroom, and Dinner doesn't magically arrive at the table, ready to be eaten. Last week, while I was still in the hospital, my husband's was driving home from our place of I worship,when his car broke down in a shady part out town, at 10:30 at night, with our youngest son with him. I wasn't there to go pick them up while we waited for AAA to arrive. This was not a cheap fix $$$ spent to repair this issue that this car has had before.The flowers in our garden aren't getting watered daily because that's something I always did because my husband never got around to fixing the drip sprinkler, so now everything's turning brown. Three days ago, a cat that actually belongs to a neighbor, but who is completely abandoned and neglected by them, so she, and three other cats from that household sleep at eat at my house-- two in the garage and two in the shed-- took Ill. we couldn't bear to watch her suffer, so we took her to the vet-- more $$$. She needs IV fluids, and I'm the only one who knows how to do it, so I'm hobbling in much pain,to the guest bathroom a few times a day to do that as well. She's not doing well, and I feel that if I were in better health right now I could nurse her the way she needs me to, but I don't have the strength.Andthen there was the issue with getting refills of pain meds, and doctors not returning phone calls. I finally got the Rx, but my OS made sure that he emailed me that I needed to to start backing off because he didn't want me to get addicted. Honestly, if i was going to get addicted to narcotics it would have happened years a ago with any of the other surgeries I've had. The poop fairy has only been to visit twice since my surgery,even though I take dulcolax, miralax,and Prunes every day. So my stomach is uncomfortable. I had staples removed two days ago, and that hurt so much I nearly threw up. I still haven't received an increase in gabapentin, but I see that doctor in person tomorrow. Hence, the nerve pain is still intense. I cannot get a good nights sleep, neither can my husband: he sets an alarm so I don't miss my medicine doses, gets up to set my ice machine, turn it off, fetch me water, massage my thighs and calves,etc, etc. We Are sleep deprived. MySIL felt it necessary to send me a text to tell me that she thinks I enjoy the knee pain and probably took my neighbor's cat to the vet to further injure my knee and prolong my injury, which hurt my feelings, so I let her know, and now she's mad at me. I know I am on narcotics and not myself, but I am truly overwhelmed and I think I'm depressed. So that has been my past few days. I apologize for not checking in sooner.
Sent from my iPad using BoneSmart Forum
New Zealand
