New Year, New Knee! (Part 2)

It's been a while since I wrote anything, mainly because of the festive post-surgery activities.  One of my friends told me that physical therapy is a full-time job.  I thought I knew what she meant.  However...!

The day after I left the hospital with my shiny new titanium knee, I went to my first outpatient physical therapy session.  I've been going three times a week and doing my exercises at home twice a day since then.  After each exercise session, I've iced my knee to control the swelling.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but by the end of the day, I'd be wiped out.  After I ate dinner and cleaned up, about all I was good for was vegging out in front of the TV.

I progressed really well until three weeks ago.

I got sick.  REALLY sick

I had a couple of days I didn't dare leave the house.  Then, after I got over that, I woke up Sunday with a familiar feeling - hot eyeballs.  Fever.  As the day wore on, my eyes felt hotter, my head hurt, and my sinuses started draining.  I got a sore throat and started coughing and blowing my nose like mad.  I lost my appetite and all my energy.

The following Monday I literally dragged myself out of bed, to the doctor, and back home.  I couldn't eat anything but cold cereal.  Ugh.  I dragged myself to the pharmacy after my prescription was filled and dragged back home.  Again.

I didn't sleep well in bed because I was uncomfortable and couldn't breathe well, so I'd get up in the middle of the night and move to the recliner.  I wheezed with every exhale, then I coughed until I thought I was going to toss my cookies.  I was too exhausted to read any of the books I had stacked by the recliner (now THAT'S sick).  Good times.

I spent most of my time those two weeks in the recliner.  In addition to the medicines I was taking for my knee and my usual allergy stuff, I took a bunch more for the sinus infection - Augmentin, Mucinex, Robitussin, Sudafed, Afrin nasal spray, and Chloraseptic throat spray.  The meds have so many different dosing intervals I had to write out a medicine schedule just like they tell OLD PEOPLE to do.  Of course, I'M not old (!), but...  Ugh.

Robbie took over my lap.

Before I got sick, I'd started to dismantle the sickroom accessories surrounding the recliner, but I had to put them all back in place.  Here's my view of the world most of the day while I was sick - basically the same view I had a lot of every day since I got home from the hospital.  I'd been either in the recliner doing some of my exercises, in the recliner icing my knee, or in the recliner reading or watching DVRed movies.  With a cat (or two!) on my lap.  I had about as much oomph as an overcooked noodle those weeks from being so sick, so I hadn't done my exercises or gone to physical therapy all that time.

Bad, bad, bad.

But earlier this week, suddenly, I felt like a real person again.  So I went back to physical therapy and started doing my normal STUFF again, including dismantling the sickroom stuff around the recliner - AGAIN!

Maybe it'll STAY that way this time around.