Days 1 thought 3

Tuesday February 17th:

I arrive at OSU East at about 9:00 am for my pre-opt appointment. The nerves are starting to build as I am led to the back to gown up and be outfitted with all the gizmos and gadgets that will keep me alive and monitored through the procedure. I'm informed the surgery will take about 3.5 hours. In reality it took almost 5.5. No major complications coming out of sugery, normal grogginess and slighly elevated BP.

I'm moved into my room to rest the night. The pain is pretty intense once the post operative Nerve Blocks wear off. i thrash and toss about as little as possible until they bring me some high dose pain meds to make tolerable. It was a long night.

Wednesday February 18th:
I'm woken out of sleep all night with lightning jolts of pain. On a scale of 1-10 I'm hovering around a 9.5. Probably the most pain I've ever been in. Ever. About 700am Stephanie, Dr Flannigan's PA , and another fellow come by to follow up. I learn the defect in my knee was about silver dollar in size and during the course of the osteonomy my leg broke. This explains my exrememe sharp pain and why I was so uncomfortable. Otherwise the surgery was successful, and providing I follow all the stringnet protocol should make a good recovery. During the course of the day they get me up on crutches so I can feel the weight of the brace, plus the IceMan, on my leg so I can be more comfortable moving aroud when I get sent hom. Even being up for those short 10 minutes was painful. To help me sleep at night they give me a nice mixture of Oxycotin, Percocet, and Ambiem.

Thurday February 19th

I woke up this morning after a fitful night of sleep. I was up and down all night with my blood pressure spiking and fits of pain shooting through my leg. They finally got me comfortable and asleep around 4:00am. Later that morning Physical Therapy came in and introduced me to a medieval torture device, called the CPM or a Continous Passive Motion Machine. As the machine moves is flexes my knee joint which is supposed to assist in healing. I thought I was pain yesterday, today was a whole new expereince. Once my body addapted to the movement and my pain meds were ajusted again, I was able to fall asleep in the machine for several hours. My flexibity improves all day, I was able to icrease my range of motion from 10 degrees to 30 degrees. Pretty good for one day. I have to be in this thing for the next 8 weeks or so to keep my range of motion high. This evening the pain is bearable...i'll sleep the best I can, with the hopes I will go home tomorrow.