I'm on the post-operative coast

I have been trying to think of how to relay my surgical experiences and just how much information to put “out there.” Getting total knee replacements at the age of 52 is really young to be going through this but with everything that I have experienced like; 1) Been hit by a truck while crossing the street, 2) Gained a lot of weight, 3) I have osteoarthritis. All of these factors have each played their part in the need for this replacement and the yet to be discussed other knee that also needs to be replaced.

Going into have this surgery was not as simple as the many other surgeries that I have had. I was not so certain that this would be the answer to my being able to feel that I can be more mobile again. Surgery was not easy going into the OR and the surgeon did not even acknowledge that the reason for all of them to be gathered there had entered the room. It was all hurry up and get this done and move on to the next one. It is very hard laying there with a drape up so you can’t see what is going on and yet you know that they have pulled your ever so lovely hospital gown up to your waist and your girl parts are exposed for everyone in the room to see. One has the feeling that you are being violated and you’re just laying there and letting them do it. In fact you signed up for actually let them do this to you! Is even worse! I had opted for the new type of anesthetic called a femoral nerve block. They insert an IV into this nerve in your groin area and it continually blocks any feeling or sensations to your whole leg. And then they place an epidermal in your spine so you now have no feeling in either of your legs. You are still conscious that your hospital gown is still pulled up to your waist and everyone is seeing your girl parts!

As I lay there and know that they are having troubles with getting the 4 screws that have been in this knee for over 12 years. I can hear the drill trying to back those screws back out of my shin bone and I can feel them pounding with a hammer just to expose the heads of those screws. Other times I can feel them shoving and hammering metal on metal as they try to attach the replacement into the correct position. And yet I am not worried about all of this! I have this disinterested point of view even though I know it is my leg and my bones they are hammering, chiseling and sawing: You just don’t really care that much. The reality comes when you finally see the sixteen and a half inch long scar that this procedure has left on your leg!

Now it is seven weeks since the surgery and I putter around the house pretty good and I still walk with a limp but that will eventually go and the scar is healed and has begun to fade but it is still a very long scar and it is not pretty to look at! Not that anyone ever actually sees my knees!

The first few days that I could catch the bus and go to class on my own was extraordinary! The second day I could do things on my own I went to the library and to lunch and it was great just to sit there eating and reading a book knowing that I did not have to consult with anyone on how long I could be there. Now after doing this for three weeks it has not lost its rush!

Am I back to normal? By no means can I say that as I still get tired and if I spend too much time walking I do have some pain. Sleeping at nights is the worst. My hormones are totally out of whack so I have night sweats. Now that I sleep with the ceiling fan on it seems to be getting better. But still some nights are hard because it seems that you can’t get your leg nerves to calm down to get to sleep. So those are the nights I get up and walk around until I feel tired and then try to lay back down only to have to repeat this over several times in one night. It’s 3 am and I am still not gone to sleep yet. This is all part of this I am told now that I have done the surgery. This not a simple recovery in fact it is probably the longest recovery that I have experienced. But they only warn you against the regular surgical problems like infection, nerve damage, and bleeding. They never tell you that your life is not going to be the same for months after. That going up and down stairs to do laundry is exhausting and tricky carrying a laundry basket of dirty clothes or that it now will take you at least an hour to hand wash your dishes because you can’t stand at the sink that long, or the strange feeling that your surgical leg is now longer than the other one! In fact it really is now that you have replacement in that is a full knee joint and not the worn one that you had.

Now you look for new opportunities to do your physical therapy and practice counting because you need to count how many of each exercises you do. And trying to remember just when it was you took that last pain pill. I would write this stuff all down but I would probably forget where I put the list. So for now I am coasting! Yes that right coasting through everything I can possibly find and someday I will feel like I used to and hopefully even better but for right now I am coasting!

Brown Paper Bags

As I gingerly make my trek back out of the hospital with my brown paper bag that is to discretely transport home my antibacterial wash and my Fleet enema! Yes that’s right!
Yesterday was my appointment with the surgeon and boy was he just so happy!! He’s the kind of person that should be working at Disney World! The eternal happy place! Can I just say that he was totally thrilled beyond belief that when he took as gander at my x-rays of my poor old knees! The sight of my totally trashed arthritic knees was the best thing that ever happened to him! That would have to include marriage and children!! I have the first of two surgeries scheduled for next Friday, January 23rd. Today I had to go to the hospital and have my blood work done and I met with the anesthetist regarding the type I would want to use during surgery. Seems that the “new” thing is to NOT put you totally asleep but just do an epidural to block your feeling in your legs and that you are relatively still out of it thanks to the oxycontin (major pain killer). This will also take care of the nausea and vomiting that usually comes with the general anesthesia. And I can look forward to spending 2-3 days in the hospital and then transition to a rehab center to spend another couple of days then I get to finally go home.
Today, I have walked the maximum distance through the maze of hospital corridors carrying my brown paper bag. I hope everybody I see thinks I just purchased something at the gift shop! I have never used an enema before…and from what the nurse says I don’t really need to bother much about it! Unless I am constipated or eat a really heavy meal the night before surgery! I save sent out my emails to friends giving them notification that I will be out of the loop after next Thursday so to not worry about that they don’t hear from me for a week or so.
Now I will take my brown paper bag into the bathroom and place it in a place of honor – the bottom shelf of by the sink – I just don’t know about this enema thing!

New challenges for a new semester

I have always been told that: “God will never give you more that you can actually endure.” Really?? Says my questioning mind. Life has turned out to be a series of lessons of just how much strength I really have when I least think I do.
I see my life has been nothing but a series of living on easy street to questioning the All Mighty if he really thinks you can endure this! It is just when you think things are going great…look out! That’s about it. I have been through relatively easy periods dramatically cut off by those unplanned and unscheduled events that are truly life changing events.
As I have become well aware of the recovery form these life altering events I have become somewhat of a “pro” at the stages of regaining the life that I once had; well some of it at least. I guess the idea that I am now facing a new semester in school and the idea of trying to maintain my academic status and deal with the hardships of my inability to walk for long distances and possible surgeries during the semester. I am not looking forward to the next few months. Trying to be a college coed at 52 is hard enough but add on to that the need of completely new knees is almost more than one can endure: But I am going to! Somehow I think that my hindered ability to walk may just be a benefit to my studies—what else can I do but sit? I might as well read and do my homework. I think that I may become even more scholarly in the amount of research that I can do regarding the texts I’ll be reading.
My plan for today is to research the texts the professors had placed on our book lists. I think that way I can go into each new book with a little ground work and preparation before I crack the spine of the new books. I have always loved to be the first person to open a book. I am in love with the smell of new books and the noises the binding makes when you open up your newest treasure. So here’s to new adventures not just between to covers of literature but as to attending college as a physically challenged person. I hope I can really do this!

With the New Year under way I still sit here and the depression is tough today. I have feel so isolated and cut off from my even minimal routines. Granted I never was much a go here and do this type of person – but now I have an imposed isolation rather than one of choice. It is hard to sit home day after day my BIG days are when I go grocery shopping or to the library! And those are turning out to be just about more than I can do! I come home so exhausted and in a lot of pain that it is getting to the point that is just about not worth the effort.
I usually play on the computer and watch videos for company, but I have been having issues with my laptop and the PC is still in the repair shop! I have almost given up hope that I will ever hear from them ever again! I have called three times and left messages to call me back and I have never had a return phone call. So here I sit with just a limping laptop for the only entertainment use.
I spend many hours every day in contemplation of the importance of knees. We take them for granted. When you are suddenly left with some sort of malfunctioning and painful spaces between my thighs and ankles that become your total focus everyday. Can I do laundry today? Can I make it up and down the stairs lugging laundry baskets? But when faced with nothing clean to where then it becomes an issue. No longer is the question of if I have it in me to make the trips up and down the stairs but what else can I do down there that will let me be somewhat productive while down in the depths of the dark and smelly basement. I have a sewing machine and a couple of projects down there that I am currently working on so I can be somewhat productive while I wait for the laundry to be finished.
I am glad that I have cultivated skills in sewing, quilting, and knitting. I have projects everywhere. I have a knitting project by my laptop. I knit while I trying to figure out why my laptop will not let me watch videos on YouTube and why do I need to keep resetting my modem. Computer woes plague me right now and I have learned to depend upon it for entertainment during the day. Now it works as good as my knees! See!! That’s what I mean if things are not working I relate it to my knees! It has become a vicious cycle and everything brings me back to my painful knees.
oday be grateful that you can kneel in prayer, or kneel to be closer to a child, or even pick up the stuff you have dropped behind the toilet! Right now those items are officially dead to me! If they can’t roll out to where I can get them – then I never want to see them again! If I try to retrieve them I get visions of a skeleton bent over the toilet – it was me trying to pick up my mascara that rolled back there and I went to pick it up and I couldn’t get back up!

So here I sit it has been nearly two months since I heard the words “total bilateral knee replacement.” Okay reality tells me that this was to be expected: Since the 1992 auto-pedestrian accident I was involved in. I was lucky then as to not need any kind of knee surgeries. So now 16 plus years later I am stunned when I here the doctors diagnosis. So for the last two months I have been awaiting my appointment with the surgeon and I still have 23 more days.
With the falling snow I have given up most of my outside activities they are now consisting of grocery shopping using the motorized carts and going to the library to pick up more videos to watch. I have become adept at the use of my cane for all sorts of other things breaking my way into the closing elevator doors, I can hook things with the handle, and most favorite thing is my cane has become a toy for one of my little friends, Theo. He likes the strap that is supposed to go around your wrist so you never drop it. Unfortunately I have yet to learn to use the strap and I continually have to bend over to pick my cane up! So here I sit just another snowy day and once again I skipped the getting dresses thing! I rather be in my nightgown any way and no one sees me so what does it matter? And there is nothing you can’t do in your jammies that you can do in clothes…alright go outside…even then I will on occasion take my trash out to the garbage can in my robe and slippers. I don’t travel off the back porch so I have told myself that is acceptable!
Today I have been working on cleaning and organizing my house and today was the day I decided to change my bedding and that has been an all day project: Striping the bed and getting flannel sheets out and putting on a new feather bed cover and my flannel duvet on has taken most of the day. I have been clumping up and down the stairs to put things in the washer and then ironing them. I also ironed the decorative shower curtain for my bathroom. That got the cleaning yesterday. And also my demise almost occurred….it happened when using a spray on tub and shower cleaner and then I began scrubbing the shower wall and realized that my eyes were burning! I had not properly rinsed the sponge I was now using and I got a chemical reaction! I ripped open the bathroom window just in the nick of time! I took a serious time out after that and to catch my breath. But the tub and shower is really clean!
I have got my banana nut bread just out of the oven and I am hoping to make at least one batch of divinity tonight still but we’ll see. It seems that every time I make divinity I eat more than I can package up to give away as Christmas presents. So I am going to try to be good and not eat much as I have been loosing weight this last year 19 pounds and I hope to continue.

Merry Christmas to all!

The smell of Autumn

This is my most favorite time of year. I love everything about it! I am no longer a slave to a dying lawn and those pesky weeds. But now is the time to settle back and let things kind of slide. The looming winter is on its way and that constant thought is in my mind.

While walking through the neighborhood I can smell people have had their fireplaces going. This is the perfect time for the comfort of the fire to snuggle up with a quilt and a good book.

Yesterday morning I was up early to get ready for church and I felt something in the air that seemed that there was a big change occurring...snow. Yes that is right -- snow -- the first of the season. I felt compelled to take my camera with me as I made my trek to church and took a few shots of the autumnal snow fall. As I ventured out I was wary of this sudden change in the weather. I have always in the back of my mind -- how is this weather going to affect my asthma? As much as I enjoy this time of year it also heralds a time of my humanness and how I can be affected in quite dramatic ways by the weather.

I spent one serious winter where when I was outside I had my face covered with my scarf and the asthma inhaler in my pocket at the ready. My routine was use that inhaler then cover my face go outside wait for the special bus to take me to the building of my next class and when I got in I would again have to use the inhaler. This was repeated several times everyday and each time I exited every building. To top that off I also had virtually no voice -- only something that was a cross between a graveling squeaky thing. I was like that all winter and well in to the spring.

Today as I contemplate my humanness as well as my health I sit snuggled with a quilt and reading a book -- On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Friedrich Schiller...not your average good book...not even a good book a very difficult treatise on the Aesthetics, not an easy read but interesting work on how his mind is working.

Every year since that winter I had this secret dread for the changing of seasons. I fear that I will have another bad asthma winter. But for now I will try to enjoy this beautiful season called Autumn.

How cleaver is this?

Today is International Disturbed People's Day
Please send an encouraging message to a disturbed friend.... I don't care if you lick windows, take the special bus or occasionally pee on yourself... You hang in there sunshine, you're friggin' special!

Every sixty seconds you spend angry, upset or mad, is a full minute of happiness you'll never get back.

Today's Message of the Day is:

Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, And never regret anything that made you smile. Send a special message to all the people you love and don't want to lose in 2008. Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance.