First I started my day off by almost falling over while on crutches. Luckily, I hopped and balanced enough to stabilize myself. I woke up to quite a stiff knee... and when I say wake up, I mean I gave up on sleep. I slept in small 40 minute chunks, but kept having bad dreams about hitting my knee on things! The second catastrophe of the day, my cryocuff stopped working and started leaking water everywhere. So while I used gel ice packs and an older version, manual style cryocuff, my knee spent most of the day burning and throbbing. Most of the pain is around my kneecap and down my shin, which makes sense since they take a bone chunk from each, and I went with the patellar graft so there's an incision in the front of my knee with stitches. My upper thigh is also quite swollen and sore, and beginning to bruise, despite keeping my leg elevated. My pain meds didn't do much for me today, and around 5pm I finally broke down in tears from the pain. Somehow my mom managed to fix the good cryocuff and feed me dinner so I could take my anti-inflammatory meds which seemed to help a bit. I only get up to go to the bathroom, and that is a feat in itself. Getting in and out of bed is painful. My knee feels somewhat like it's being ripped apart and cauterized. But enough of the whining.
I didn't get much sleep today either, but I did manage to distract myself with some studying and talking to friends. I will be eternally grateful to those who have been texting me all day and letting me complain. The nerve block wore off, and my thigh muscles started to twitch occasionally which caused pain. I ate a banana, the spasms stopped.
Throughout the day I've been doing my ankle pumps to keep from blood clotting, but can't do straight leg raises yet; maybe tomorrow. My pain has been around a 5, sometimes spiking to an 8 and my leg has been hot. I am boiling through ice packs. I am assuming this is somewhat normal, as my leg underwent a trauma and there are no other signs of localized infection (such as red lines moving up my leg or fever).
I advise you make extra gel packs, because they won't hurt to have! You can make your own at home by mixing rubbing alcohol and water in a plastic zipper bag (I double bagged, and by "I", I mean my step dad), it's 1 part rubbing alcohol to 3 parts water. These work better then solid ones because they conform right to your body for the most ice to injury contact! And the ice is SO nice.
Laying down so much has made me stiff, so I slipped a heating pad under my back and that helped too. I'm hoping tomorrow I'm a little more comfortable moving around a little more, but today simply readjusting from laying to sitting or vice versa was a struggle. I've been told today and tomorrow are the worst, and then it starts to get better so I'm just telling myself to get through the weekend.
The nurse from the surgery center called me today to check on me, and said I could take benadryl to help with the itchiness caused by the pain killers and help me sleep. I should hear from my surgeon too in the next few days as well. Dr. Wilckens and his team have been amazing, I highly recommend them!
So while today was uneventful, surgery isn't expected to be fun. I just hope this helps other people in a similar situation and let them know what to expect-- hopefully it gets better quick!
My advice: take your drugs, use ice, stay elevated, and move as little as possible. Eating healthy and staying hydrated is also a must! Get all the sleep you can get. Your body went through a traumatic experience and needs to knit itself back together.And if Ice Cream will make you happy, eat some ice cream.
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| The left: the inside of my knee with no ACL The right: with ACL made from patellar tendon |
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