Been Too Busy to Post, Gonna Stay that Way...

...'til Sunday. Y'all see, I had to go to the Dr. yesterday. I was supposed to go on the 18th of this month, but since my knee was still hurting from Thanksgiving and all the stress [it was cold, rainy, and I stood/walked/bent it more than usual for 3 days in a row] of that event, I figured I'd call and see if they could get me in earlier. They could.

Doc and I talked it over. He's going to go in Monday morning and perform "Right knee arthroscopy with lateral release and patella chondroplasty". That last was for my medically savvy readers, or those of you've who've already had this surgery yourownselves. For those of you who are sittin' there shakin' your heads and sayin', "Huh?", I'll translate: he's gonna make a small [maybe 3/4"] incision, just outside each corner of my right knee; then he'll use his super neat-o instruments to go in and clean out all the arthritic "junk" that has built up in my knee since my 1st injury at age 15 [I'm 52 now]; then he'll loosen the ligament that runs along the outside of the knee, and if he sees any tears in the cartilage, he'll fix those, too.

Then the fun REALLY starts! They will wrap my leg in a compression bandage [to keep the swelling down] from 6" below to 6" above the knee; and then wrap it with another Ace bandage from hip to ankle. For the next 24 hours I have to ice it for 15 minutes at a time as much as possible. For the next four days, I have to keep it elevated for as much time as possible. Because of the compression bandage, I will not be able to bathe or shower for those four days.

I bought a huge bag of unscented Huggies wipes at CVS yesterday. I figured that would be better than trying to wash with a wet, soapy washcloth because they drip, and are messy and they you have to rinse and dry. With the Huggies, all you have to do is pull it out of the pack, swipe and toss. No muss, no fuss, no drips, no rinsing. Or I could just let the dawgs bathe me with their tongues. After all they consider me the Alpha Bitch of the pack and the love me, a LOT!

In between now and Monday, though, I have to finish up my Christmas shopping. There's not a lot left to buy, but there is some and I had planned to stretch it out. Oh, well.

If the Dearly Beloved gets the router connected, I'll be able to post in my pain medicine altered state from the couch with the laptop, if he doesn't...oh well.

There IS a bright side to all this, though. Hopefully, after I heal from the surgery, I won't be in as much pain and will no longer be able to predict changes in the weather from the pain in my knee. And then there's the post-op morphine... go back to June 8th or so in the archives and read about me and morphine.

Oh, and for all of you who are always gently raggin' on me about smokin'...my O2 sats y'day when I had my ECG was 98 and my ECG was completely normal as was my Chest X-Ray! :)~