Knee Surgery Success

On Tuesday, May 24, I went into a surgical center in Bethesda for an outpatient procedure, the repair of my left knee's torn meniscus. Now a week later, I can confirm my knee is improved.

It was hard to tell at first. My last memory before the anaesthetic whisked me away to HappyLand was laying in a hospital bed wearing a hospital gown with Michael sitting on my right side. When I woke up, I was in the same bed, in the same position, in the same clothes, in the same room with Michael at my right side. Outside of my knee being thoroughly bandaged, I could not tell I had been moved or had surgery.

I used crutches to get to the car after the procedure. Once home, I popped to Oxycodone to "keep ahead of the pain" as I had been warned to do by friends and my surgeon, then rested in bed with my leg elevated somewhat to assist with circulation. Ice packs were frequently applied.

On Wednesday, I was able to walk without crutches: I could put full weight onto my left leg although my knee's mobility was limited by the swelling and the tightly wrapped bandages. More resting, more leg elevation, more ice packs. However, I did not take any pain medication as none was necessary: my knee was irritated but not painful.

On Thursday, I went to the gym. My knee may have been out of commission, but the rest of me could still do a full workout. Since I wasn't to remove the wrappings until Friday at the earliest, I didn't shower at the gym: when I arrived home, I fashioned a cover over the bandages with a plastic garbage bag and gaffers tape, then awkwardly showered in our own bathroom. More resting & elevation, but no ice packs and no meds.

Friday was a regular work day for me. Work was light as it was the day before the Memorial Day weekend in the US, but I still caught up on emails, worked on some tickets, and generally looked into the backlog of things in my queue. I removed the bandages and was finally able to confirm to myself that, yes, I did indeed have some medical procedure: I could see bruising and sutures in two spots, as well as general skin irritation from the bandages. Swelling was still an issue so walking had an inelegant limp, and stair climbing was problematic, especially going down stairs. No pain or infection, just general irritation.

I placed waterproof bandages over the sutured areas but otherwise left the knee unwrapped. I still needed to elevate the leg periodically to ease the swelling and aid circulation, and I was tiring frequently from my awkward gait, compensating for a less-than-functional limb, but each day showed further improvement.

Since then, I've been to the gym on Saturday, Monday and this morning (Tuesday) without issue. As the swelling recedes and I stretch my leg carefully each morning, I get back more mobility. Now a week after the surgery, my walking gait is nearly normal and stairs, while a bit awkward yet, are no obstacle.

I have a follow-up appointment on June 6 to remove the sutures and generally confirm all is good. I expect to have all general mobility back by then, and experimenting with square dancing again later that week. I'm going to give myself two weeks after my first successful dance evening before I try a leg day at the gym --and, of course, go slow at that for a few weeks to get back my strength.

Three Men and a Baby

Granddaughter Elodie is visiting with us this week, Tuesday to Tuesday, while her parents take advantage of a use-it-or-lose-it vacation package her mom won from her employer for sales volume last year. Elodie is only a couple of weeks shy of her first birthday --and that's awkward in so many ways.


I'll start by saying she's a delight and I'm tickled to have her here. The snag is that we all have jobs already, so fitting in baby care is a bit of a challenge in our otherwise adult lives, even if two of us typically work from home. Being a toddler, she needs constant care & supervision; even without a fulltime job, that's a major undertaking.

Elodie also can't vocalize her needs or complaints except by crying, wailing or shrieking in a fashion which may yet crack some windows but it's not always clear what is irritating her at a given moment. We have learned the "my poopy diaper needs changing *now*" scream, as well as the "I'm scared of strangers" and "I feel abandoned" cries. Her "I'm hungry" cries are harder to identify as they come across more as general irritability, so we need to monitor feeding times so we can hypothesize whether hunger is an issue.

We've also found that she has a real problem with people entering or leaving the room where she is located at any given time. She might be playing in the living room with one of us, then she becomes generally stressed when either of the other granddads enter the area, although she'll calm down in a couple of minutes. But once she's accustomed to your presence in the room, you can't leave the area without a mournful multi-minute cry of infinite sadness.

Seriously, once I manage to leave the room, I make a point of not stepping back into her visual range again unless I'm certain I'm going to stay with her for at least an hour. If I even suspect I may need a bathroom break in the next half-hour, I'll hide in the kitchen for as long as needed. Even today, rather than go up the stairs from the basement computer bunker to the middle bedroom to get some papers, I unlocked the basement backdoor, went up the outside stairs, unlocked the kitchen backdoor, and had Michael distract the baby while I dashed into the bedroom to grab my papers. Only when he indicated Elodie was distracted again did I risk dashing through the hall again, then retracing my steps to the basement.

I'm skulking around like a thief in the night. In my own house. Because I'm scared of a baby. OMFG.

Elodie has a mixed track record being introduced to strangers, but in general, she finds the experience upsetting: she hides her face, flails a bit as though she's trying to run away, and being angst-ridden crying. I'm not exactly sure what has caused this behavior, but we have to work with it somehow.

Tonight, we're trying a little experiment: Elodie will be joining us for our C2 square dance in Arlington, VA. We hope she'll acclimatize to the situation after a few minutes of angst, but are braced for the possibility she will be utterly inconsolable until we get her home. Depending on our degree of success, we may bring her to John Marshall's A2 dance Friday night and the DC Lambda Squares' Advanced & Challenge afternoon on Saturday, as well as the Mid-Atlantic Challenge Association board meeting on Sunday. This may be an utter disaster, but there's no way to tell until we try.