A day in the life . . .

A day in the life of a knee replacement patient. Ack, this surgery and the recovery is not for the faint of heart.

The first few days.

A blur of pain, nausea and trying to move a little bit without too much screaming. I was given a nerve block for the surgery and for many, this block doesn’t wear off for a few days after. Well, mine wore off a few hours after the surgery. All I can say is OUCH.

Since anesthesia and I do not get along, I had to stay overnight in the hospital so they could manage my extreme nausea. This was first (and hopefully last) time I will ever stay overnight in the hospital. I was so sick and in so much pain, I didn’t even get nervous about being in the hospital.

I have to say the nurses were wonderful. You hear horror stories about there being a skeleton staff at night and it being hard to get a nurse to come help you, but I didn’t encounter that at all. My only complaint about the hospital stay is that they were stingy with the strong pain medications. Liquid Tylenol does NOT do the trick. Enough already about worrying is someone will become addicted to pain medicine. I just had my knee sawed in half and metal posts inserted into my bones. Yep, there is a lot of pain.

Home, finally!

I try to be the model patient and do everything I am supposed to do. I even managed to get up and hobble around the house every hour. Thank goodness for Mr. Ken though. So I take my pain pill and soon after that the pain is back. I’m thinking it’s time for another pain pill, but he reminds me it’s only been 45 minutes. The directions are to take every 4-6 hours for pain. Oops.

The medication parade. I go from someone who takes just a multivitamin to all of these medications. I swear, one need a computer program to keep all these straight. And I have to be careful not to take some of the meds together. Not sure what would have happened, but I didn’t want to chance it.

Finding spots of beauty.

I was blessed to get several beautiful flower arrangements after my surgery. The timing of each arrangement was perfect! They each came several days apart so I was able to enjoy all the flowers for several weeks.

This colorful bunch came from my dear friend Judi. It immediately brought a smile to my face since it was just so bright and cheerful.

This beautiful arrangement came from my dear friend Lisa, I just love the pink and mauve colors. She said she chose those colors because they remind her of Cape Cod and summer.

And last, but not least, this pretty arrangement was from our financial planner and his team. We have been clients of theirs for over 30 years and we consider them part of our family.

These beautiful arrangements were especially welcome since recovering from knee replacement surgery is just as much a mental game as a physical one. All the meds and the pain can make one feel very discouraged. But, these brought a smile to my face.

Have you had major surgery? If so, how did your recovery go?