Day Two

First night, I was so intensely, painfully thirsty.  I just couldn't get enough water or ice.  I thought maybe the IV was causing my thirst (what do I know?) but they said no.  Sometime after breakfast it started getting better, but it was a really long, uncomfortable night.  I kept putting in eyedrops because my eyes were dry, too, but they didn't help much. At one point, half asleep, I called the nurse because my IV was beeping - but it wasn't mine, it was in another room.  I kept finding myself talking in my sleep, and waking myself up.  Eventually, I did get some sleep.

In the morning I was allowed to order real food: scrambled eggs, cinnamon French toast, oj, and coffee.  Yum!  Then the physical therapy lady came in, and I went for my first walk down the hall. So weird - barely 24 hours after getting a new knee, and I was walking on it!  Then I sat up in a chair for a bit before getting on the leg bendy machine again.  It felt this day like I had been punched in the thigh, but I had no other pain, really.  My leg was a bit stiff, though.  I had to kind of perch on the edge of the chair to be comfortable.  Just before lunch they shut off the IV but left all the plumbing in place in case there was a need for it later.

Lunch was pizza, salad, and a brownie, then another round of hall walking, exercising, and sitting in a chair.  Novotny came in and I asked him about the thigh pain.  He thought it was probably more from the tourniquet they put on your leg during surgery.  The nurse said it was probably from the various unspeakable things (her words) that were done to me during surgery.  She said I wouldn't want to know, and she is right!  :)

Dinner was penne pasta with meat sauce (meh), salad, carrots, green beans.  Then I sat in the chair again until I had to go back on the leg bendy machine at 8:00.  Because of the thigh pain, the PT lady showed me how to use the gait belt to lift my leg into bed and into the machine.  There was just nothing I could do to lift it myself.  I can't even describe how I was trying, with everything in me, to move it but it just wouldn't go.  So frustrating - and scary because what if it didn't come back?  And it was annoying because I was comparing it to Day One when I could do everything, with no pain.  Stupid of me, I know.