Back in the (Legasus) saddle

I'm now two days out of surgery. To fill you in:

I've been cutting down on my pain meds pretty quickly. I started out with an arsenal of Oxycodone, Toradol, Tylenol, and an anti-nausea pill to take with the Oxycodone and Toradol. I'm also supposed to take Aspirin every day. I don't like taking the Oxycodone because it makes me sleepy, and I'm almost out of Toradol because the doc didn't want to prescribe too much (I guess anti-inflammatories counter-intuitively actually slow down healing) so now I'm pretty much down to the Tylenol. The pain has been surprisingly mild, actually. I guess I missed out on the worst pain by spending the first night and day in the hospital--they kept me really doped up there. I'm obviously staying off my knee and being really gentle with it, but as long as I ice and elevate, I haven't felt much need for extensive pharmaceuticals.

I've been doing some quad exercises since the day of surgery: leg lifts and quad tightening exercises every hour or two while I'm awake. The quad muscle atrophies amazingly quickly--not sure if that's because of the surgery or because of the tendons that were taken out of my hamstring. I've also been using a continuous passive motion machine, which I lobbied for. It's called "the Legasus"--isn't that glorious? It sounds so majestic! Apparently it's the same technology my uncle used when he tore his ACL 30 years ago. Anyway, I'm strapped into it for a couple of 2-hour shifts every day. I started with it set at about 35 degrees on Wednesday, and I already have it up to 75! It's kind of nice in the beginning when you see so much progress so quickly because there's nowhere to go but up... Oh, and as you can see, I still have to wear a ridiculous Dr. Seuss stocking. It's supposed to prevent blood clots. It's really not bad, I barely notice it, it just looks silly :)

So basically I've just been sleeping and watching lots of t.v. and movies. I discovered "Jersey Shore" is on my mom's On Demand--happy day!

Today, I had my first post-op doctor's appointment. It went well! He said my wounds look great--he even took the stitches out well ahead of schedule and replaced them with steri-strips so I wouldn't have to keep them in until my next appointment in two weeks. It was nice to get the gigantic gauze wrap off, so now I can see what my knee actually looks like. It's swollen, but a lot less scary than I imagined. [Side note: Can you see my doc's initials under my knee? They autograph you before surgery while you're still awake to make sure they don't accidentally replace the wrong ACL!]

The plan now is to stay the course: continue with the quad exercises and the Legasus; keep icing, elevating, and wearing the stocking; and take it easy.

I start PT on Monday (oddly enough, I'll be seeing a woman I went to high school with!) That will be nice--PT back in BK was incredibly helpful, and it gave me a lot of things to do on my own at home. I'm excited to get started.