Ted had his 5th knee surgery early yesterday morning. It was an outpatient operation, so he’s doing well and recovering nicely, but he’ll be on crutches and unable to drive for about a week. Truth be told, he’d actually really been looking forward to this surgery for the past month so the pain would finally go away (after these next few days of relative immobility and soreness at least), and he could start healing and get back to the life-as-usual activities he’s had to limit lately. Ted’s an old pro at surgeries by now. I’m still pretty antsy about them. It’s never fun to see your loved one hooked up to IVs and being wheeled away from you down a long hospital hallway when there’s nothing you can do but sit and wait – even when it’s a short, low-risk surgery and you know he’s in great hands. Still not easy. Of course, he did great. He’s a total champ, keeps all the doctors and nurses laughing, and looks super stylin’ in that handsome blue and red hospital-issued dressing gown and scratchy gray and white anti-slip socks.
Despite waking up at 4:45 in the morning to be at the surgical center by 5:45 for his 7:30 surgery, he was awake by 8:20 and we were out of there by 9:30. After checking out of the surgical center, we enjoyed our post-surgery tradition (it’s pretty sad that we have a post-surgery tradition, isn’t it?) of a huge, celebratory breakfast at ihop. The docs warned him that he’d probably be too nauseous from the anesthesia to want food. They obviously don’t know Ted. He clearly wanted to eat – pancakes, french toast, bacon, sausage, hash browns, eggs, english muffins – all of it. I guess that’s what happens when you tell a diabetic he can’t eat or drink for 10 hours. Anyway, breakfast was great and relaxing – just what we needed.
It was cold and blustery out all day yesterday and I’d taken a med-leave day off from the theatre to play nurse, so after breakfast we headed home to recover. Ted got comfortable on the couch. We propped up his leg, bundled up in blankets, wore our pajamas all day (um, even to surgery and ihop. No shame.), watched movies, and we each took a nap. Around 3 p.m. I made a huge pot of my mom’s amazing homemade Mexican chicken tortilla soup garnished with cilantro, freshly shredded cheese, tortilla chip strips, lime, and avocado, which is out-of-this-world delicious, reminds me of Texas, and totally hit the spot on a day like this (plus, plenty of leftovers for this week…yesss!), and then after making sure Ted was settled in on the couch and had everything he needed, I took a bubble bath and read some of my book. He also had three assigned recovery exercises he has to do ten times every hour he is awake, so we stayed on top of that too. And then we commenced more of the same. All in all, it was pretty easy yesterday while his knee was still numb, but the numbness starting wearing off last night before bed and we both know he’ll be much more sore today before he starts feeling better.
I know it sounds like it was pretty relaxing day (and in some ways, it really was), but between the very early morning, the emotional stress of surgery, the care-taking, and the running around trying to find waterproof bandage tape for showering, etc. I think we were both absolutely beat yesterday and today. It was a huge struggle to pry myself out of bed this morning and I’m still completely exhausted. And that’s just me, the one who didn’t have surgery. Needless to say, we plan on taking it easy for the rest of the week. We’ll start taking short walks on our street or around the grocery store at night after I get home from work to keep his leg moving, but otherwise, I see lots of lounging, movies, Wii games, board games, and early bedtimes in our future. Surgery and winter weather sure do go hand-in-hand, don’t they?
