5 Weeks Post Op

I haven't felt like blogging for weeks now,but now I am back and ready to write a little.  My recovery from total knee replacement has been more difficult than I imagined.  My first knee surgery was a partial, which is so much easier.  When I went to see Dr. Bugbee a few days ago he said, "Now you know why I do a partial whenever possible."  Total replacement is so much more invasive, thus recovery is slower.

My biggest issue has been sleep.  I sleep for maybe two hours, then wake with pain or stiffness, and never get back in a deep sleep the rest of the night.  I had to get off the Norco, as it was making me feel fuzzy in the head and tired all the time.  I no longer have that extreme fatigue, but I am just plain tired from lack of sleep.  I have tried to control pain with Aleve and Tylenol, but it's just not doing the job.  I now have a 15 day prescription of Celebrex, an anti-inflammatory, that I 'm hoping will help.

The doctor says I'm healing well, the knee looks good, so why do I still feel so bad?  I need more time, he says, so I will try to be patient.  Everyone's different, and I just have to accept that my body is taking more time to heal than others.  The fact that I have additional stressors in my life probably contributes to slow healing, but I can't do much about that.  I'm just hoping that I will feel stronger soon.  We want to go out to dinner, and I'm not quite up to that yet.  For now, I will stay close to home, go out and do one thing each day (haircut today), nap, and try to get stronger.  As the old saying goes, "This too shall pass."