March 24th, 2008

The pain is starting to subside, finally.  Not to the point where I can go without medicine, but I've cut my doses of both narcotics in half in the last 2 days.  I think I shouldn't be rushing getting "off" these drugs when I can clearly use their benefits, I'm sitting here thinking the knee would feel so much better if I was taking the full dose, but frankly, the addiction factor scares the shit out of me.  So anyway, I've gone from 40 mgs of oxycontin twice a day, to 20 mgs of twice a day.  This is by far the scariest drug to be on, its pain relieving benefits are second to maybe only morphine, but being addicted...no, thats not for me.  They told me at my doctor's visit Tuesday, that this is the way I wean myself off, I can't just stop cold turkey, or I will go through withdrawals.  After a few days at 20 twice a day, when I feel like I can cut it again, I'll go to 10 twice a day.  I'm not sure when that point will come...hopefully quickly now. 

I missed therapy Friday, because we had a huge snowstorm going on at appointment time, and I was scared to go out, scared of falling.  Which I did do on Thursday.  (rolls eyes at self).  Jeremy had put my CPM machine on the floor at the foot of the bed for me, but he didn't tuck the cords in and dangly cords don't agree with limpy ladies.  Anyway, I got out of bed to go grab my phone, which was ringing on the OTHER side of the room, walked around the bed, got my foot tangled in the cord for the CPM and I went flying.  I think I screamed before I even hit the ground.  I have heard horror stories of people falling after TKR, and completely wrecking the implant.  They tell you prior to surgery, get rid of all throw rugs, all electrical cords that may be in the way, anything that might trip you up, you are to put away.   DO NOT FALL is very high priority. 

I'm not sure how I landed, I was so scared during the fly, but when Jeremy came running to help I was on my butt, on my left side, so I think I protected it (the replaced knee) good enough during the fall.  But after falling Thursday, I just wasn't willing to risk walking on the snow and ice for a therapy on Friday.  I'm pretty good about doing my exercises, I do them on and off during the day, and I worked a little extra Friday to make up for missing PT.

I was a little apprehensive about going to therapy today, since I missed Friday, I was afraid I might have back peddled a little in my progress from missing, but thankfully, my home work is paying off.  I hit 103 degrees of flex on my own today!  Wednesday last week, I had hit 95.  So I am making forward progress!  When I got there, I got on the bike to do a little stretching before PT, and I accidentally went the entire way around.  I'm only supposed to go halfway front and halfway back, but for some reason that damn wheel went the WHOLE way around.  I screamed, saw stars, and blacked out.  The 2 therapists came running to help me off the bike and onto the bed/mat and we all had a good laugh about it, after the pain went away.  Now I know I can make one complete circumference, woo hoo.  OMG did that hurt.

My flatness measures at 8 now.  The muscles in the back of my leg (hamstrings) are so sore from the surgery, it really hurts a lot to do the flattening exercises.  I'm working on it though.