November 2, 2010

October 1st – My first operation (Knee Recon) & recovery

As with most people I felt very nervous before my first ever operation. It didn’t help that I had to wait so long! Thankfully my wife came with me and waited with me for a couple of hours in the waiting room.  Eventually I was taken to my room around 3pm where I would recover during the night after the operation.



Around 5pm the assistant nurses came up to take me to the operating theatre. I was covered with a blanket with was filled with warm air to keep me warm which was nice. At this stage I was actually reasonably calm. I was wheeled into the theatre and there must have been at least 6 or 7 surgeons around! An IV drip was put into my left hand and after a little bit of chit chat with me doing most of the talking I was completely knocked out!
I woke up in the room around 8:30pm and remember feeling groggy but surprisingly good... actually much better than I expected. I took panadol every 4 hours on the nurse’s advice despite feeling ok.  I actually slept reasonably well considering. My wife came in the morning and I was discharged around 10:30am.



The first 3 days of recovery were spent at my parent’s house with my wife also staying over in the spare room with me. In general it went pretty well and I was only taking panadol during this period. I did take panadol forte once on Sunday night (2 days after the operation). The main pain I was experiencing was back pain as I am used to sleeping on my side and could not get comfortable on my parent’s spare bed!

Recovery went ok up to Tuesday the 5th of October. I had fever and cold shivers on Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th. I called surgeon on Thursday to state my concerns but only got to speak to the assistant nurse and not Hayden. I was asked a few questions such as:
1)      Is there much swelling in your knee?
2)      Is there any redness around the knee?
3)      Is your knee unusually hot?
4)      Is there any discharge coming from your knee which is a yellow, green or puss looking colour?
I answered no to all questions apart from swelling which I stated looked very swollen. Thinking about it now it probably wasn’t too hot as I was icing my knee regularly. I was told by the assistant nurse that it was ok and that it didn’t sound like infection. She advised me to see my local GP for a second opinion. I saw the GP later that day and was told it was not infection after he thoroughly inspected my knee. I also had a blood test which showed no infection apparently and I was not called (I was told if there was a problem they would give me a call).
It then got much worse for me. On Friday, Saturday & Sunday it was absolutely terrible during day and night. My leg constantly in pain and I had lots of back pain and aches. During these nights I was up every 2 hours due to the pain and I was drinking lots of water. I was also constantly craving fruit and had a massive fruit salad each morning on these 3 days. It was obviously my body trying to fight the infection.

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