Also June 14

   I must be getting nervous because I'm starting to remember what I've mostly confined to the past.  When I was I the hospital for the TKR, I was prepared for lots of pain.  Everyone, even, and especially, the pre-admission nurse advocate or liaison, or whatever she called herself.  The first night you will feel extreme pain, she warned.  That was not the case.
     I felt virtually no pain while I was in the hospital, due to a nerve block, I'm assuming.  I think it may have been  more than usually effective because pretty much the only pain killer I've ever  taken is aspirin and Tylenol.  The worst discomfort was at home, when a toothache-like bone pain would wake me up every night around 2:00 a.m. for several weeks.  I think it was because I avoided taking the prescription Oxycodone; I still have most of the pills, and never refilled the prescription. I think I was afraid it wouldn't help and then I'd really be out of luck if the pain got worse.  So I was saving its effect for when I might really need it. I think if there's to be a next time I would load up.  WTH.
    I put up with the gnawing night-time pain.  It would have bothered me even less if I'd know it was only temporary, but I read all those patient comments where they are still suffering months and years after their surgery. Yikes.  One of the things that really bothered me was that the foot on my operated leg swelled up and stayed swollen for a while.  Days?  Weeks? I'm not sure now.  It didn't seem to me that an innocent foot should have to suffer, and I didn't understand why, though it seemed expected and no one seemed concerned. (except me)    I think I understand now why the foot swells: it's because of the effects of the tourniquet they apply to your upper leg during the surgery. The blood supply is cut off for quite some time, an hour or more.  No one wants blood during an operation where you have to see what you're doing.  So the foot suffers.  I read that in some cases the patient stores his blood in case a transfusion is needed due to that blood loss. I know there must be blood, but I have to say I didn't see a single drop, either in the hospital or at home, just whatever was on the outer stitches.  The tourniquet must have been tight enough.
   Today is the first day that has felt like summer to me, and I kind of wish we were planning a trip to Cape Cod or such, as in the old days.