The first being, of course, natural childbirth. Been there, done that... Twice. But it is easy to resolve labor pain. Push hard, baby comes out, pain done.
No. This is worse. Much worse. Like, can I cut my leg off now????? Kind of worse.
I am having a rare moment of lucidity, that short 20-30 minute period where I'm between rounds of meds, so I'm in serious pain, but not loopy...yet, so I am writing this quickly while it will still make sense. It's been a vicious cycle these past couple of days. The meds make me nauseous, loopy, sad, anxious and drowsy all at the same time. I have two different nausea medications - one pill, one patch, pain meds, anti-inflammatory, baby aspirin and stool softeners. In comparison to my last two surgeries (shoulder and BR), this one is totally kicking my ass. I feel completely helpless. And the pain and discomfort is unbelievable. Right now I am in the emotional phase of 'I'll never walk again...'. Supposedly you really can heal from this surgery, but right now it just seems impossible.
The day of surgery was terrible. Mom took me down, but when it was over and we were in the recovery room, the nurse was getting short with me for not rousing fast enough (I suppose they needed the bed..) and was also irritated with mom because mom was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, and she was my ride home. Soon mom was sitting on the floor, bracing her head on a chair and looking greenish white, and so the nurse got very snippy and barked orders to other nurses to take mom's blood pressure and call my husband. Dean had to leave a movie with the three little kids - they had just sat down with their popcorn mere minutes before, and drive the 45 minute drive to come get me. They released me to Dean, who drove my mom's car with me in the back seat, and my mom - who had recovered for the most part from this strange episode, drove the kids home. Strange trade-off. You let the grandma who is faint, drive three small children... I puked twice on the way home, but luckily they sent me with sick bags. They had given me a round of Fentanyl in the recovery room for pain (I was completely unaware), which makes me really, really sick. I had it when I delivered Rylan - my only drugged delivery, and it was *horrible*.
The ride home was awful since it was my husband driving. That man has a knack for hitting each and every bump on the road he can find. He did it during each and every one of my pregnancies, too. I got sick again, and then it was a long, horrible haul, scooting backwards on my behind up the stairs and into the bedroom. I haven't left yet. I am afraid to.
Here was my knee yesterday morning. I had to change my dressing. I wear a long compression sock to hold the dressings in place, otherwise. My skin is numb to the right of the main incision. It will most likely remain numb. The swelling is pretty bad right now, and I switch out the ice packs every three hours.
That's about it. I *get* to wrap myself up in plastic wrap and take a shower today. I've washed my hair in the bathroom sink the past couple of days, but I am feeling pretty gross at this point. I get to load into the car to go to my post-surgery appointment tomorrow afternoon. I'm not sure how I am going to do that yet.
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