The Woods

I think I'm out of the woods now, but it was pretty hairy there for a while.

After the meds finally wore off, the pain came back, and the hip hurt like hell.  Besides that, the low blood count kept me feeling extremely weak and woozy for several more days.  All I wanted to do was sleep, but I still had to wake up every 4 hours to pee.

Sunday, almost a week after surgery, was the first day I finally felt like I had a reasonable amount of energy, and I felt like a lot of the pain had subsided.  Sunday afternoon I decided it was time to take a shower.  For the surgery, they put compression socks on my feet and lower legs to squeeze the blood back up toward my heart.  When my mom them off, she noticed that the pressure sore on my right heel had returned.

I was pretty upset about it because it means I have to go back in the boots.  The contracture boots keep my heels from making contact with anything, but they are not fun to wear.  The last time I had this pressure sore, I had to wear them for 6 months.  I don't know what they weigh, but I think it's 3 or 4 pounds each.  They make transfers harder, and they make it difficult to spend much time outside.  I view it as a huge setback.

So when my mom discovered the sore, I attempted to pull my foot in for a closer look so I could render my disgust more directly.  When I did so, I heard a noise come from the vicinity of my hip.  It was sort of a quick "fffffft".  When I looked down at my thigh, there was a massive amount of blood coming out from under the bandage.  It was more of my own blood than I'd ever seen before.  I'm not sure myself, but my mom thought it was about 1/4 cup.  Beyond that, blood was still flowing from a cut about half an inch beyond the end of my incision.

We both took a moment to freak out a little, and then we paged the orthopedic resident to get some advice.  They advised us that the dark color meant the blood was from a hematoma.  Basically the area of the surgery had continued to bleed internally, and when I bent my leg, it squeezed the pocket like a huge pimple until it burst.  They insisted I come to the hospital so they could take a look at it.  So I spent a big chunk of my Sunday afternoon at the hospital getting poked on by doctors.  They tried to squeeze as much blood out as they could by really laying into the site of the surgery with their full weight.  It didn't hurt much when they were doing it, but it hurt a ton the next day.  When they were done, it was still oozing blood at a pretty good clip.

Every few hours

So for the next couple days, we had to change the bandage every few hours and it still ruined several pieces of clothing.  It continued leaking for 4 more days although it slowed each day.

Between the blood and the pain, we thought it would be best if my mom stayed another couple days.  Fortunately Southwest is really nice about letting you change tickets so she left Wednesday instead of Monday.  By Wednesday, I was much more under control.  The pain was tolerable, and the blood flow was under control.

So I think I'm out of the woods.  I'm certainly not done recovering.  Not by a long shot.  But I think I'm done with the worst of it.  It should get easier from here.