I'm not very surprised at anything happening right now. Not too much sleep again, lots of napping, and quite a bit of pain with any sort of movement. It seems that as long as the bandages are loose enough on the ankles there is usually no pain while I am not moving, but as soon as I begin to adjust, the pain begins. The right leg hurts more than the left and the anterior incisions hurt more than the posterior. I had the first follow up appointment today. We took all the ace bandages, gauze wrap, and gauze pads off for the first time. Each drain (there are 4 of them) is attached by a single stitch just above the associated incision. In my opinion these are not very well attached. If the tube moves at all you can feel it, and the stitch moves and therefore is painful. I just got done un-wrapping and re-wrapping my legs again. It seems that no one can get the bandages set perfectly like I can (and that's still far from perfect). Mixed with the fact that the drains are coming out of my legs at 4 different points and attached by a single stitch means that I need to help secure then with the bandages so they can not be pulled by anything. And I've had to tape down one of the drains because two of the drains/balls keep getting tangled when I walk and therefore stopping me in my tracks. I'm already moving slow enough as it is.
The legs overall are not too swollen. There is a puffy spot below each of the anterior incisions. My Nurse Practitioner was not too concerned about it though. I still have quite a bit of fluid coming from each of the drains, but to be able to take them out there should be less than 10cc's coming form each drain. We will leave them for the next appointment on Wednesday, which is what I figured. I have too much experience to even have had a glimmer of hope for the drains to be taken out today. But I am quite sure they will take them out on Wednesday because they will have been in place for 6 days and at that time they start to pose more of a caution of starting an infection rather than being a tool to remove excess fluid. I will give you a small precursor to Wednesday's post: there will be a lot of drugs taken, and an extreme amount of pain involved with the removal of the drains. The last time I had the drains removed I was given an extra shot of morphine in the hospital and was still jumping off the bed in pain. I was given percocet from the hospital, but got a prescription for oxycodone today because the other medicine was making me sleep all day. I've also had a low grade headache for a few days and a touch of nausea, so I'm hoping that switching meds will help all around.
In other funny happenings, Mom calls 9PM the strip and shoot hour. AKA, she strips and measures the drains, and gives me my blood thinner shot which also hurts a lot (but hurts less the slower that it is injected).
No more fun news. Dad and I are on our own tomorrow as Mom attempts to go back to work. I have a feeling my sister, nephew and niece might show us at some point. I just hope Dad and I can agree on what to watch on TV all day long. haha
No comments:
Post a Comment