June 18 surgery and beyond

[bestbob]

Hello all, out of surgery for 3 hours. All went well, pain is managble so far. Was a 2 1/2 hour operation as there was a lot more wrong then good

[Anna]

YIPPEEEEEE!!!!!!! Nice one! I hope you have a full speedy recovery.

Keep us all updated   

[Marco Polo]

Bestbob:

Congrats!  I am glad to hear surgery went well.  Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

[hernanu]

Great news Bob! Don't worry about what was wrong. That's past - now you go forward.

[kate71]

congratulations Bob! hope you're feeling ok
 

[bestbob]

Thanks for the kind words all. 22 hours post op and doing ok. Soreness in hip by incision, pain at 3 and pt today. No knee or groin pain, hopefully gone for good. Hope Lauren and all others still in recovery doing great.

[packman]

Welcome to a different kind of pain Bob - Short-term Muscle pain, leg strength pains, and some incision pain. Hopefully you will be saying good bye to those over the next few months in different degrees. Plus a permanent good bye to those bone on bone nerve jolts or dull achy throbs from other hip connections to the knee & groin. Easy does it now on turtle power for the next 6 weeks! Best of luck and support!

[evant]

Well done Bob.

Best wishes as your recovery progresses.

[trgcfrg]

Good luck, Bob, and best wishes for a quick recovery!

[Lauren Lee]

Bob, So glad you are doing well! I came home today! 48 hours and change post op! The old back pain, groin pain and knee pain is gone. The new pain, I know is just temporary and will all work out in a short time. I am tired (might have something to do with the drugs).  I just have to remember...no TWISTING.
Wooohoooo!!!!!! We're on our way!!!!!!

[brianebanta]

Bob and Lauren,

Great to hear you guys doing well!  I am about a month ahead of you guys, you will make great strides as long as you remember to rest and be patient (seems to be a common message around here).  I noticed the biggest changes after the drugs and initial shock from surgery wore off.

I am amazed at how different and less my pain was in the first few weeks. 

I am now back to driving, work, and on one crutch.  I am still on hip precautions for two weeks, but slowly loosening them. Starting my 6 weeks of 2x PT this Friday.  I do experience soreness in the joint/muscles, but mostly I just more tired than normal.

I keep trying to remember that it will take a year to get back to 110%!  : )

Keep up the good work.

-Brian

[Lauren Lee]

Love all of the encouragement here. Brian, great positive report! Bob- how are you doing today? I will say my first night home from the hospital was not great...reality hit hard. Today...better emotionally. Easy does it.

[hernanu]

That's fine Lauren - remember the healing is structural (bone), muscular and other areas, and emotional as well. We've all gone through ups and downs. It's normal.

[Lauren Lee]

Bestbob...where are you? Hope all is okay.

[bestbob]

Saturday – June 22, 2013 2025 hours
Thanks Lauren Lee for checking in on me.

Hello Everyone, I would have checked in sooner. Been figuring out which position is best in the hospital bed, PT, icing, resting, debating with the nurses on pain medication, and more icing, has just been so much fun, I couldn’t get away from it. 

This is day 4 ½ post-op, and following are some brief notes. I would like to expand more on pain management later on, and share with you my experience, and welcome feedback all.
1.   Minimal swelling in thigh
2.   Very little, almost no swelling at all in ankle/calf
3.   Using Ankle Pumps for 2 weeks and taking aspirin 325mg 1 month for DVT
4.   PT 3 times daily, won’t go into the details on this post
5.   Sleeping a bit tough as I am not a fan of sleeping on back. Tried sleeping on non-op side and that didn’t go over well at all
6.   Medication (in hospital)
o   Every 4 hrs, 2 pills, Oxycodone 5mg, 2 pills
o   Every 4 hrs, 2 pills, Oxycodone 5-325 mg, alternating hours of 5mg
o   Twice daily, 325mg aspirin
o   Twice daily, stole softener
o   Once daily multi-vitamins and 2000 unit D3
o   As needed, Ativan to fed off any anxiety I may get
o   Basically taking pain pills every 2 hrs

Regarding pain management, or maybe I should say medicine management, starting day 2 post op the nurses were trying to increase duration of time with no pills. They “accidentally” move to 3 hours, and then tried going to 4. When I questioned them on it, they stated they either forgot to give them to me, or was waiting for a call from me to remind them. Fast forward to release day and what the doctor prescribed. WOW, it was a large reduction, meaning I would have to really increase the time between pills and reduce the qty. To put it in perspective, I would run out of the 5mg Oxycodone in 2 ½ days and the 5-325 Oxycodone in 7 ½ days if keeping to the hospital schedule. So here I go, trying to figure out how to make these pills last as long as possible while keeping the pain to an acceptable level. We shall See!

Input welcomed on anything folks…

To sum this all up, and assuming all this soreness and etc. goes away, which I am sure it will, I am please with the progress to-date. All the pre-op pain is gone, Yippeee, and I can tell the pain that I have now is the typical post surgery/muscle soreness.

Thanks All - Bob

[obxpelican]

Bob,

I seriously doubt you will need the pain meds in a few days, most of us after 7-10 days were pretty good in the pain department, bear in mind we are all different. 

I was released with 40 vicoden and I think I ended up with 16 of them left in the bottle which I still have somewhere around here.

Keep the icing up, make sure you elevate when you are swollen and your body will make up for the rest.


Chuck

[bestbob]

Thanks for the reply Chuck, it does seem a bit better today. The mornings are the worse, with all the stiffness and such. With the constipation my stomach feels so full, and worried about eating, so I will take a laxative, which I hate to do. :-(. Question, anyone remember when they stopped being constipated?

Lauren - hope you and others are doing OK.

My best regards to all.

Thanks - Bob

[obxpelican]

Those pain pills do make the stool like concrete huh?

I would be doing stool softeners and juices, although I always try the natural route first, lot's of water helps a lot.



Chuck

[brianebanta]

Best Bob,

For me getting off the narcotic pain killers and getting my digestive system back to normal was a huge step early on.  I was able to go down to 5mg percocets only at nighttime at day 4 but stayed on them for at least a week to make sure I was sleeping good.  During that week I found prune juice and stool softener to be very effective.  Once I stopped the narcotics I didn't need either anymore.

-Brian