Life After Surgery

The First Few Days

My initial plan was to keep a daily journal of my healing process, but the truth is, for the next several days following surgery my pain killers kept me asleep for most of the time. If I wasn't asleep, I was running the ice machine, and overall, I felt pretty "out of it." I barely remember the visitors that I had the first several days home, and everything just seems to be a bit of a blur. The day following surgery, I had my first post op physical therapy appointment at 4:00 in the afternoon. Again, due to COVID-19, I had to make my way up to the PT offices alone. I was a bit nervous about it because I was still unsure of walking around on my crutches. If I'm being completely honest with you, I don't remember all of my PT session. My physical therapist took the big bandage off and changed my individual dressings. I was still unable to really see what it looked like, because of all of the steri strips on top of the incisions. I was surprised there wasn't much bruising. I had seen some pretty gnarly pictures of bruising post op online, but my bruising was minimal. 

The day after surgery, at PT. I had two incisions. 

Other than getting up to use the restroom, I stayed pretty horizontal for the first several days after surgery. To be honest, I was so afraid to do something wrong, that I didn't want to risk it; however, I was a little nervous about my lack of movement. I have a blood clotting disorder that causes my blood to clot more than it should, so for the first 10 days after surgery, I had to take Lovenox injections. Unfortunately, until those injections were finished, I couldn't begin my 30 days of anti inflammatory prescription pills. 

I was ecstatic the day these shots were finished