So update:
My PTs think I have a little tendonitis by my left ankle (no doubt caused by my overdoing it). So I am to rest rest rest, elevate and ice again. The ice men do well, but they are really a giant PITA to get set up to use. It was much easier when the aids did it for me in the hospital, lol. (Thank you aides)
One son came back for the week. He took an incomplete in one class last sememster and has until mid February to turn his project it, but new classes start on Thursday, so he came back up here so I could light a fire under him to get it finished. So at least I have some help this week, and my granddog is back.... he brings me so much Joy (well, they both do lol).
In order to sleep well, I have learned I have to take a cocktail of drugs: a mirapex for my restless legs syndrome (therapists did say anecdotally that people do complain about an uptick in RLS after knee replacement), a vistaril (prescription like antihistamine) because I get itchy scratches from the healing scars releasing histamines and then my regular klonipin — I have diagnosed insomnia, though my doc put me through an online CBT class to learn how to manage it. It definitely helps, but I can’t really do it when I have all of these other things going on.
The drugs give me a hangover effect in the morning, so I move super slowly and have been sleeping about 12-14 hours a night. I’m not worrying about this too much right now since my job is still to rest and heal. Plus, what TF else am I to do? PT is my only social event of the week, 3x a week.
As an aside, a lady here I know who works with my husband sometimes had her surgery 3 days before mine, and she also had both of hers done by the same two surgeons I had. Let’s call her “Suz”. Suz had a late wound infection (she is big... a big and tall country lady with a farm aside from her job and everyone calls her “big Suz” (at her insistence) and she can’t sit still and does a million things during the week.
She had to go back into surgery and I don’t know all the details, but I think it wasn’t just a wound infection, but it traveled to her joint parts, so she had to have another big surgery.
I think she is doing ok now. I can’t imagine going through that again, so I am behaving and following instructions, though I absolutely get the desire to do things like weed my garden, etc. Kinda scary, as I think most infections tend to happen within a week or two of surgery....
So that is that. I’ll be 6 weeks post surgery tomorrow and am awaiting this magical next milestone of 8 weeks post surgery,