Surgery and Hospital Stay

My Surgery was Thursday, November 19th - Sorry it's taken me so long to bring this up to date...

Things were very efficient in the surgery preparation area. They started with putting me in a hospital gown, shaving around my knee, having me answer a lot of questions, inserting an IV port and giving me a calming medication. I need to note here that the nurse was nice enough to put the IV port in my arm instead of my hand so that I could knit! The doctor then came in to check on me (don't remember him coming with the 1st knee replacement). And I was sent off to the surgery queueing area.

The next visit was from the Anesthesiologist who explained that they would be giving me an Epidural, a Femeral nerve block and sedating me. He gave me the sedation, had me roll on my side for the Epidural - and I don't remember anything else until I was in recovery...

I was very fortunate - everything went according to plan, and my pain was very well controlled while I was in the hospital. I had a bulky dressing on my leg, with a drain. I had a TED (anti-embolism stocking on my non-operative leg) and I had wraps on both legs that inflated and deflated a couple of times a minute to assist cirulation in my legs.

Friday,the day after surgery, I had my 1st Physical Therapy (PT) session. The Femeral nerve block was still in place, so anytime that I was putting weight on the leg, I wore an imoblizer. They had me make several 'laps' around the PT area with a walker and sent me off to Occupational Therapy to learn how to sit and stand correctly, get in and out of the car, etc.

When the doctor made rounds on Friday evening he told me that everything was going well and that I could be discharged on Saturday if I felt comfortable after therapy on Saturday - a day ahead of schedule!!!!

Friday night and early Saturday morning brought the end of the IV medication, the removal of the drain, the removal of the Femeral Nerve Block, the removal of the bulky dressing, and putting the TED on the Operative Leg.

PT on Saturday went very well - laps were with a crutches this time and I we worked on stairs. I live in an 80 year old Colonial House that has many stairs, so a walker isn't a good choice!

(I do need to put a note in here for any knitters reading this. I was working on a February Lady Sweater while in the Hospital - and it became quite the topic of conversation. Everyone who came into the room from the Doctors to the janitorial staff wanted to see what I was doing. It got to be pretty funny when it was not only the people who were there to work with me, but the folks that were there to work with my roommate as well.)

Since everything went well, I was discharged with instructions and prescriptions in hand. Off to the next part of the adventure...