Days 5 & 6

I realized Monday night that my oxycodone would run out on Tuesday morning.

PANIC!!!

It didn't have any refills either. Apparently they don't give you any refills for narcotics.

Thinking that they would switch me to Vicodin I started to change my dosages of the oxycodone. I had been taking 2 tablets every 2 hours and still felt a lot of pain. Over the night-time hours I changed 2 tablets every 3 hours and then in the morning 1 tablet every 2 hours.

This was not working at all. I was back to the 1am pain from the hospital.

When we arrived at the orthopedic's office I was too proud to use one of the wheel chairs that were available at the front door. The longer I'm in an upright position with the blood running down to my foot the more it hurts. And not just me knee. My foot too. 

Tip #1: loose the pride, save yourself some pain.

Usually I wait in the waiting room for a minute or two at the most, but of course the time that I'm in excruciating pain it takes forever! Micah helped me get comfortable...

My doctor was on vacation, so I was seeing another doctor. He didn't tell me much at all because he didn't do the surgery.  He just said that the incisions looked good. Actually, I thought it seemed like he was acting kind of defensive. He looked at my knee for a few seconds and then tried to explain that this type of surgery looks bad and he wanted to make sure that my doctor had explained all that too me.

I told him that I was still in a lot of pain and he prescribed more oxycodone for me and again seemed defensive, asking if my doctor explained that this would be very painful.

I also told him that my hip was really hurting from holding my foot off the ground when I'm up on my crutches. He said that I have to deal with that and just try not to get up if I don't need to. "Don't go to the grocery store if you don't need to."  Are you kidding me?! I was starting to wonder if this guy dealt with knee surgeries at all.  Possibly only arm surgeries.

He and the nurses started to give me a few basic instructions that were different from what my doctor had told me. So, I straight-up told them "That's not what my doctor told me." So they kind of retracted what they had said, telling me to obey my doctors orders.  I was getting really frustrated. At least they took the ace bandage off and put a much smaller one on just at the knee.

We took a picture of it while the bandage was off, but for the sake of your stomachs I'm not going to post it.

The problem was they only tightened the brace strap just above my knee. The other straps were fairly loose because they had been adjusted to fit around the thick bandage that was on before.

So when I stood up the whole thing was weighing down on the top of my knee.

I was in so much more pain then when I had arrived.

I asked for a wheel chair.

Micah and I tried to tighten them before getting into the car, but the one at my ankle wouldn't tighten enough. I have really small ankles I guess.

When we got home I went right back to 2 tablets every 2 hours.

I'm trying to eat healthy and take vitamins. I want to do everything I can to make a difference.

For some reason I'm not supposed to be taking multi-vitamins, so I'm taking C, D and Fish Oil.

One of the medications is making me extremely thirsty. I'm drinking almost a gallon of water every day!

Over night I changed to 2 tablets every 3 hours. That allows me to get better sleep too.

As long as I'm not in really bad pain. I've been continuing that into today (Wednesday) and doing alright.

I just have to be careful about when I get up in relation to when I took the medication. I'd rather get up about an hour after I take the meds when they are working at full force.

Micah is home today too, so he is able to get everything for me. Tomorrow I might need to take them more often since he won't be home.  I'll have to get my own food, water, vitamins etc.

It's amazing how easily you loose track of time sitting in a chair 24/7.

I can't believe that Christmas is in 4 days!!!!