It’s time for the long-awaited update on what happened in the aftermath of my knee surgery. So yes, of course, the first few days were a bit rough. The pain medication they gave me made me horribly nauseated, but when I stopped taking it the pain was much worse than I had thought it would be. You see, immediately after the surgery they inject the site with a strong numbing agent, which wears off. I was actually surprised when I came home at how little it hurt. “Piece of cake!” I was thinking to myself. You should never, ever say that. The second day after the surgery, in the midst of trying to avoid taking the nausea-inducing medication and with the numbing stuff completely worn off, the pain reared its ugly spiky little head and sank its fangs in to the hilt. I was whimpering in a rather embarrassing kind of way. It made me cry.
And then, to make things even more memorable, two times that same day when I attempted to get up to go to the bathroom, the movement, the pain, the fact that I had just eaten, or a combination of all three, SOMETHING made the nausea come to a hideous peak. And I barfed--or rather (the faint of heart may want to skip to the next paragraph), I had the most unbelievable attack of truly high-velocity projectile vomit that I have ever experienced. Once the sick feeling subsided, I actually found it rather entertaining. You see, I had just eaten a raspberry smoothie and it was not only the fastest barf ever, but honestly, the prettiest as well. It was quite a lovely shade of purpley-fuschia. I will be kind and spare you the description of the second incident; it wasn’t so nice. Fortunately, I had a good friend here both times and she was a godsend. Jen is amazing and compassionate and imperturbable. That coupled with her complete lack of a sense of smell makes her the ideal friend to have sitting with you when you are barfing.
Things improved quite a bit after that (they had to, didn’t they?). Kiki went and retrieved an alternate pain medication which helped quell the queasies, and the pain slithered back into submission. The only real problem I had the next several days was combating boredom and my increasing frustration at not being able to do anything myself. Something that hadn’t occurred to me before the surgery is that when you are hobbling around on crutches, you can’t carry anything. After a few days, I had a brilliant idea and began carrying things around in a small cloth bag on my shoulder. That was especially helpful with my phone--previously, if it rang while I was in the other room, there was no way on earth I could limp my way in there fast enough to answer it. So the phone traveled with me in its little bag all over the house. The only problem the bag couldn’t solve was eating meals. I challenge anyone to put a full bowl of cereal in a bag and tote it into the next room intact. So people still had to come over and help me anytime I wanted to eat anything other than a sealed yogurt. I don’t take well at all to being sedentary or making others do my chores. On the 6th day after my surgery I spent a good 10 minutes trying to prepare a bowl of cereal by myself for breakfast--which entailed balancing on one crutch while pulling things out of the fridge or the cupboard, and multiple trips between the kitchen and living room to retrieve my bowl, spoon, cereal box, and soy milk, and then the ensuing reassemblage. I was so frustrated at the finish of all this that when I dropped something I promptly threw a temper tantrum and hurled it across the room.
I am much better now. I got to leave the house last Sunday for a very fun trip downtown to a bar where all my coworkers from Stone were gathering before the Padres game. I had signed up for the game, too, but had to concede that it just wasn’t going to happen in my present state. I stopped taking the Vicodin on Monday, and have been hobbling my way around my house without crutches since Tuesday. Tuesday I was also visited by my dear friend Peter, and after a few hours of long-awaited catching up he took me out to dinner and a beer. P usually lives on another continent so it was absolutely wonderful to get to spend a solid 8 hours with him in a row; a rare occurrence as he also has to squeeze in visits with his entire family and other friends in his much-too-short 2-week vacation here.
My healing is really progressing: I can see my kneecap now, although the swelling isn't completely gone. I am scheduled to start physical therapy next week, which will help with my current problem of not being able to bend my knee past 90 degrees. And last but not least, here are some fascinating photos of the inside of my knee taken during the surgery. This first one is the picture of the actual torn meniscus cartilage--that part curving up along the bone at the top of the gap between the bones and to the left of the tweezer things is not supposed to be there at all. What they did to repair it was plane off the part that was torn and sticking out. I had thought that they would be stitching it back together, but was told that as cartilage is a non-living tissue, it would never knit itself back together--so removing the torn bit is really your only option (and the whole reason I had to have it surgically mended).
The photos below are possibly after they fixed it but I really can't be sure; the doctor showed them to me too quickly. I'm just amazed at how clean and pretty it is in there--I guess I expected it to be all red and bloody and gruesome. Since it is a very small area captured by the surgical scope, all that shows in the photos is a lot of bone and a little cartilage, hence the lack of gore. I think in a sick sort of way I was actually disappointed that the photos weren't more grisly. I really must be hard up for entertainment!
