January 10, 2009

Improvement

The bandages came off yesterday and within minutes I was in the shower. Having a shower after child birth or surgery is like a little slice of heaven. I was actually surprised how little swelling I had, but the bruising is another story.

When I had ACL reconstruction last year, I didn't have any bruising. I thought that was weird. Everyone gets bruising from that, but this minor insignificant surgery has caused more outside bruising than I thought it would.

The knee before surgery. The bruising has been a regular issue for me since my surgery last year. At the very top of the scar on the left side, you can see a bumpy area (difficult to see on a photo), which is what my surgeon removed. There was a vein right over top of it that was causing rubbing and bruising every time I did something active.

I've been avoiding bending because it burns and feels sore and stiff, but last night I slept with my knee bent and it seems to have loosened things up a bit. I'm still pretty sore, but the bruising seems like it's stopped getting worse and may start to clear up gradually.

After bandage removal yesterday.

Not too bad in the swelling department considering he was scraping my tibia and cutting stuff out.

I have several steri-strips over the incision but I can tell he did one of those running loop stitches again which means it will sting when it comes out but I'll have less of a scar, so that's a good thing.

My stitches come out on Thursday and I hope to be ~~back to normal~~ better than normal soon after that.