Post-Op Day 4

I apologize for the crappy photos, they are coming from my camera phone. Either way, here's my knee today. I think it looks almost exactly the same, perhaps a little less swelling.

I'm no longer using a crutch to walk. I might have a slight limp, but I feel like it's the same with and without a crutch.

I'm back to sleeping in the bed. Joe hasn't rolled over onto the knee, and I feel like the pain is down enough to finally be able to get into a comfortable position. Before I was sleeping on the couch.

I still have to take stairs one step at a time, and I'm trying to limit them completely. I tried alternating feet, but it put way too much pressure on my left knee and caused pain.

I'm being very diligent with my exercises. Day one I could hardly flex my knee, today I'm at over 90 degrees. The first day it hurt too much to do the bike, today I could do 10 minutes. Mind you, I'm not biking near the speed before surgery, but it feels good to be able to do start to do things again. Plus, I'm all about limiting the degree of scar tissue that forms.

I'm not going to lie, my knee can tell when I've been doing too much and I'm glad I don't have to start a rotation tomorrow. That would be too much pain for sure. I'm on the max dose of ibuprofen, and that's enough as long as I take it on a scheduled basis. I didn't like the feeling the hydrocodone gave me.

I'm starting to get antsy just sitting around. I'd love to try some more recipes, but I think that's too much standing for now. Perhaps in the next couple of days. I'm catching up on my reading, but I can only read so much in one day. I've also started cross stitching again.

I have a research paper I need to write by the end of the year. I'd be remiss if I didn't use this time to do some hard core work on it, so that's part of my plan for tomorrow.

Mom left for Baltimore yesterday. I am so glad she came out to visit and help. I definitely underestimated how little I would be able/want to do the first two days after surgery.