day of 1st post op appointment

hours of sleep: almost 5!
Just got back home from the post op appointment.  After I woke up, played some tetris and then whipped up some treats to drop off to the NICU since I was gonna be at Galter anyways.  The appointment was at 9:45.  My mom and I left at a good time but traffic was horrible near the hospital so I was almost late.  But just like right before the surgery, with forgetting my insurance card (i brought my triple A card instead!), leaving my wallet in the car, and then being slightly late to check in, I still had to wait in the room before I was actually seen!  In the room I immediately took off my brace leg warmer, and did some last minute exercises. Like when a guy does a bunch of push-ups before he takes his shirt off in front of people, hehe.  I warmed up the knee by massaging and loosening up the patella.  Took off the little tegaderms covering the stitches, then scoped the skin closely.  I noticed my leg hairs were starting to grow back so I started plucking the lil guys with my fingers.  When I get nervous i tend to do things like that- pick at things, hairs, the dead skin around my cuticles... (not my nose though)  I was anticipating how she was going to take out the sutures.  Also, I wanted the leg to look presentable.  Shaving my legs only happens a couple times a year because my hair doesn't grow out that fast.  I'm thinking that with the cold and my leg being exposed the majority of the time, my hairs were starting to grow at a quick speed.  While nervously picking at the lil leg hairs, I could hear an employee right outside my door speaking loudly.  I couldn't block her voice out, she mentioned having to have her weave tightened and how she has 3 daughters who all get their hair done every 2 weeks.  With my interest in hair didding and all, I couldn't stop listening.  Maybe they had some tips!  So the lady she was conversating with said, "they're gonna be divas!" and the other lady said she took them to get their nails done for the first time.  I heard her say that one of the girls was 12.  Therefore the mom made them divas at a young age.  Then I looked at my nails :o).  Am I a diva?  Anyhoo, after a long wait and eavesdropping, Dr. Edwards finally came in.  The first thing she did was scope the leg (not like arthroscope, but visualize externally).  Said that that was the most bruising she's seen after 2 weeks on a patient but I had to tell her that I'm an easy bruiser (despite a platelet count that's WNL), tried to make it feel like I was unique.  I had her feel the nubbin behind the knee and gave her quick report on it- how it was ginormous the 1st week, then went down slowly, but is still kinda firm.  She looked and felt and said it was a big hematoma that should go away.  My color and circulation is fine on the LLE so there was no fear of a blood clot.  The next thing she did was the maneuver that her and Dr. Merk did prior to surgery that confirmed the tear.  When she did it there was no popping or clicking.  woot woot!  We took off the steristrips and saw that the top of my long vertical incision was still oozy, but to let it air out whenever I can.  She took out my stitches and put steristrips over those incisions.  The only part that hurt was when she pulled the stitch up with the forceps to get a good amount of it up to snip with the scissors.  Here's the aftermath:

adios stitches!  (they're those lil guys down at the bottom)

I got the okay to ditch the CPM machine because my movement is good, and that I could drive as long as there's no pain meds in my system.  YAAAAY!  She was happy with the note Kim wrote, and was glad I was enjoying biking.  My next follow up with her is in 6 weeks.  Basically she said it's now up to Kim to decide how much longer I need to wear the brace, but Dr. Edwards guesstimated about 1.5 weeks more to wear it.  Once I can do a squat with the left leg only, I should be okay without the brace.  I'm looking forward to the day I can wear pants again.  When I walked out back to the lobby, I chuckled in my head because of the amount of assisted devices I saw in the waiting area.  Walking casts, leg braces, slings, canes... you name it?  I saw it.  Well, not really, there were no halo braces, which scare the bejeibers outta me.  justin beiber.  I headed to prentice to drop off the treats.  There are times at work where we need a lil pick-me-up, and it's always the best feeling to see treats in the lounge.  The unit was busy so I was only able to catch a couple of friends.  When my mom came to pick me up, got service back on my phone and immediately called the Medsource company to schedule a pickup time for CPM.

Now that I have more room on my bed (just packed up CPM), yarn and thread have taken over.  I had an epiphany the other night with Sharon and Lis on how since I can't wear pants, I have to suffice with leg warmers.  Then the thought of knitting leg warmers was brought up!  I'm gonna attempt today.

(fast fwd to late night)  Currently watching jersey shore with Purv and Lis.  I was able to finish knitting one leg warmer, will finish its pair tomorrow.  The rest of the day was blah, got kinda emotional just because I had too much time to think and got sensitivo about some things.  you know how you have those days?  this was one of them... Just had a lot on my mind that all came together, so I just let it all out.  snot included.  had a nice crying session to the point of sob session to the point of icing the eyes to get the puffiness down and relief for the sinus headache.  Only iced to the point of slight puffiness because I kinda like the feeling of having eyelids.  Luckily good friends decided to come over, taking my mind off of things.  Lis came first and she biked with me upstairs when it was halftime for the Bulls game.  It felt good getting the knee loosened up as we watched the office and parts of parks and recreation.  I really like Aziz Ansari.  Vince sent me this funny link of him:  Aziz Ansari  Anyhoo, check out the knee in action!

gotta be at or above 125 degrees

Came back to watch the last half of a very exciting bulls game!  Attempted to watch the game while ice packing my eyes, so i alternated the pack over one eye by securing it with a headband, pirate style.  With all the excitement we thought it was reason to order ourselves some dominos sprinkled with samosas that Lis had picked up.  Here's what the perfect dinner looks like

Inditalian dindin

Purv came a lil later and we chilled like the babysitters club minus a 4th girl.  Lis finally read this blog and ended up writing comments on the posts but under my name!  I didn't realize that it could only post from registered bloggers...sowwy!  So I fixed the situation and we ain't talkin' Jersey Shore.  So comment away friends!  That I way I feel like I'm reaching out to people!  Back to the end of the night- comfort food, friends, and useless reality tv (jersey shore) are definitely the solution to getting out of a funk.  Purv ended up sleeping over, just like the old days in h.s., and of course living together for 4 years at good ol' loyola!

The day ended great, I hope tomorrow brings more happiness.  CPM is scheduled to be picked up between 8 and 9am, then PT.  Goal is to finish the leg warmers tomorrow.  peace out yo!

day 14 knee pic