Well, I met with Dr. Schena today and things look good so far… I saw the first post-op X-ray of my leg today, I have about 12 pins holding things together in addition to the big-ass metal plate… The x-rays make my leg look like a Watson & Crick model.
He said I didn’t have to use the CPM machine anymore, which is welcome news, and he also removed all the staples, which is ALSO welcome news as the area around them started to get really irritated where it rubbed against the brace. That also means that I can get the area wet again, which means I can bathe quasi-normally again (I have to sit on a little shower stool, but at least that means no more sponge baths).
So to replace the CPM machine I now will have to go to Physical Therapy twice a week and also have an exercise regiment… This is still all to work on my range of motion, I can’t put any weight on my leg more than setting my foot down on the floor… He said that it was going to be 8 weeks from the date of surgery before I could really start putting load on my leg, so I had to make my next appointment with him for 6 weeks from today. He said I can start going back to work, so I might start back next week, we’ll see how things go…
This weekend was mostly uneventful… For those of you keeping score, the deal keeps getting more and more raw for … Now it seems that I sleep much better in the bed vs. the couch (which is too small)… Unfortunately, it seems that she can’t sleep all that well when we are both in the bed (the fragility of my leg combined with my restlessness all night keeps her up)… So this weekend she volunteered to sleep on the couch, and I slept pretty well…. Last night I felt bad and insisted on sleeping on the couch, and I slept for shit.
Tomorrow’s my doctor’s appointment, hopefully he’ll take out the staples and take me off the CPM machine, but I’m not holding my breath.
I can’t sleep. It seems that something is always conspiring against me since I’ve broken my leg… Either I’m in pain, uncomfortable, not tired, or frustrated, something seems to get in the way every night…. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep until after 3am… And of course, this has a cascading effect, because I pretty much have to wake up when Corinna leaves for work, so I end up taking a nap during the day out of exhaustion, which further pooches my sleep schedule.
I know I have to crutch around, I know washing up is hard, I know pain is expected, I know I have to strap myself into that god-damned CPM machine, but can I at least sleep?
I saw this on Google News just before my accident… I clicked the link and the ACTUAL headline was complete, I guess Google somehow trunc-ed the headline:
I was conversing with and Kelly this afternoon and we decided that Matt (a.k.a. ) is invulnerable to mortal attack. The only way to injure him is to enrage him (through the use of video games, the ultimate source of hate) and cause him to injure himself. He is like the level boss in Zelda whom you have to trick to enter the lava so they injure themselves (and, of course, to kill them you must do this three times).
So I am completely off the painkillers now, and the only thing I am putting in my body is the Lovenox injection once a day (to prevent blood clots. The physical therapist came by today to check up on me, and she gave me some tips that will hopefully make my CPM sentence a bit more bearable…. She also made me crutch all the way down the hall and back, but I managed that pretty well. When she comes back on Friday she is taking me down to the first floor to make sure I can navigate the front steps (since I have to leave the building next tuesday for a doctor’s appointment).
This CPM machine is really the only low-light of my day… It isn’t even my leg that hurts after using it, it’s my back and neck… But Leslie (the therapist) said that contrary to what the dude that delivered the machine said, I don’t need to be lying flat while using it, so hopefully sitting somewhat upright will alleviate some of my back problems.
I like to push the boundaries, no doubt, so I decided today to start to test the waters and eek back my painkiller usage. I’ve been on percoset since I left the hospital… I was originally taking two every three hours, and then I dropped it down to one a day or two ago and that seemed to go well. Today, after my parents left, I decided to see how it would go if I just stopped taking my pills…. I made it 9 hours before I took another one, and really, my knee wasn’t what made me take the pill, it was my lower back… After several hours in that CPM machine my lower back just starts aching…. And since my mobility is so decreased, there isn’t much I can do about it…. Hopefully my body will get used to this routine soon, otherwise I am going to have to figure something else out… The physical therapist is checking in with me on Tuesday, so I will ask her if she has any suggestions.
I went to bed around 10:30pm last night, still having a bit of a difficult time getting comfortable sleeping on my back (I normally sleep on my side), but I’m managing… As opposed to the hospital, where I would constantly wake up to alarms going off, people screaming/moaning, or my own pain, here at the apartment pretty much the only thing that wakes me up is pain…. So I sleep at about 4 hours clips (the duration of a Percoset dose), but last night, I woke up at 4:30am, took my drugs, but was unable to get comfortable or get back to sleep… So I woke up and asked her to help me out to the living room…
I was finally able to get comfortable out here, and even managed to sleep another hour or two… I watched the season premiere of Deadwood from last week, not sure what I think of it.. I am also almost completely caught up on the show Lost which I got addicted to after Audra recommended it to me… Thankfully TVTorrents.com was able to “catch me up” and I now only have a few more episodes to watch before I’m caught up… And I can watch them while strapped into my Constant Passive Motion (CPM) machine for hours at a day…
Man, this Powerbook has turned out to be a godsend…. I think I’d be coping with this injury less successfully without the portability and versatility of this laptop. Corinna was able to bring it to the hospital so we could watch movies, I can bring it to the bedroom so I can chat or read or watch shows off the TiVo… It’s just wonderful…
Mom and Dad are visiting today, which should be good… I am getting more and more comfortable functioning with my bad leg… This morning I even managed to put a sock on my bad foot using my left foot… It took awhile, but every little thing like that which I can do on my own makes me feel a bit more human. We also had a raised toilet seat with push bars delivered yesterday, so I can use the bathroom relatively normally now…
