Obviously the toughest week. It's the operation, the recovery room, and finally your ICU room. It's being flat on your back, beeping monitors, and nurses checking your vitals every two hours. You'll need to get used to very limited movements since you are seemingly hooked up in every direction. You can also expect to pee a lot. Your IV drip will be filling you with 100ccs of fluid every hour and what goes in will most certainly need to come out... and come out often.
It's also the reality of seeing a long line of surgical staples running down from your lower abdomen to just above your ankle. It's fighting back any thought that you might not get back to the life you knew before the operation. All I can tell you is... stay positive and take one day at a time. Don't let your mind wander too far off into the future. Things get better... just not that much during that first week. Your body has suffered a huge shock and it will take time for it to settle down. This is how it went for me:
Day 1: Operation at about 9:30. Lasted approx 2.5 hours
Day 2: Rested all day. Got out of bed and sat in a chair for a couple hours.
Day 3: Took pain med - not needed. Made me groggy. Sat a few hours in a chair.
Day 4: Changed room. Finally did short walks twice with a walker in the afternoon
Day 5: Walked longer distance. Passed PT test and discharged. Home and rested.
Day 6: Home all day. Walked around the house with walker. Tender and very limpy.
Day 7: Used walker in the morning, then switched over to a cane, but did a lot of hopping..
Your leg will feel very tight. It's a real effort trying to bend it or straighten it, although you must continue to try. If you are athletic, you'll have a big advantage. Being well balanced while hopping around the short distance from bed to chair, or using a walker from bed to bathroom, and then finally short walks in the hospital hallway will be less of a challenge for you than someone overweight or in poor health. Move as much as possible, no matter how ungraceful it looks. And try to bring your own walker so the hospital staff doesn't need to find one for you.
Once you get home, try and locate yourself close to a bathroom. The toughest thing that first week will be trying to stand up. Your leg won't get close to being straight. You'll be putting a lot of weight on your walker/cane and really feeling the tightness in your leg. You'll be swollen from knee to ankle and the best relief for that is keeping your foot elevated. Don't spend too much time with your foot down or you'll run the risk of your calf-ankle-foot really swelling. Keep that foot propped up high. Excessive swelling will slow recovery and make walking all the more uncomfortable.
The hospital will give you instructions to do knee bending exercises from a sitting position. Be diligent. Do the exercises. You should also take it upon yourself to supplement the exercises with some gentle stretches. The ones I did were very simple: bend at the knee, then stretch the leg straight. You won't even get close it moving normally and that's mainly due to the swelling around the knee. I personally had a small clump behind my knee and also to the incision side. That extra mass really inhibits your range of motion, although I was told it was perfectly normal.
I was sent home with medications. There was (1) my normal cholesterol pill, (2) also Flomax to help peeing (which I don't normally take), and (3) a stool softener (which I also don't normally take). I was offered pain medication which I declined, but did buy some over the counter Tylenol for some relief.
I'm sure people opt for pain meds. I personally don't think it's a good idea. I weakened on Day 3 and took a Percocet, but was very disappointed in myself for doing so. I was worried about how I'd feel trying to walk the first time, but the pill made me so groggy I wound up not even trying to walk that whole day. Very disappointing. I think it's possible I ended up staying in the hospital one extra day because I didn't try to walk on Day 3. My advise would be to tough it out.
I can honestly say that I did not feel much pain that first week and I really don't think my tolerance to pain is very high. The fact is this... you are very uncomfortable and tender, plus you are very limited in your movements, but much of your leg is actually numb. My leg from the knee down, and maybe three inches to both sides of the incision is numb, including the actual stapled cut line. My advise again would be to tough it out.
Congratulations. You survived Week One!. And if the first week was complication-free, you are well on the road to recovery. Better days are most certainly coming, but not so fast.
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