A heartfelt callout to Dr. Peter Fischer ...
One last post for the day .... I just want to post a sincere thank you to Dr. Fischer who I consulted with pre surgery. I was quite sure having the procedure by him in San Antonio and spending that much time away from my home office wasn't going to be a possibility for me, but I coukdnt help but call him knowing that TLs was his specialty. I am so incredibly grateful for his phone call back and for his time, advice, knowledge and concern. Before calling him I had read posts about him and was thoroughly impressed with his approachability, knowledge and generosity of time, in addition to his great surgical results. And I agree with those reviews. He has a truly caring, calming and patient disposition which I experienced in my first phone call and in his follow-ups to see how I've been doing post surgery. I know he has an extremely busy practice but he makes the time to check in with his patients and in my case, a non patient. This personal attention in most industries is unheard of today, but this is his trademark and I'm grateful I've had the pleasure and benefit of meeting him through this experience. A huge thank you goes out to him. No wonder people speak so highly of him!
Two of my favorite tools in recovery
I've meant to share a couple of my favorite tools during recovery. 1) This short ladder has been fabulous for me to climb in and out of my relativrly tall bed everyday since I've come home from surgery. Put the ladder alongside your bed at an angle toward the bed where your legs and feet will go on your bed. Lean against your bed where you want your butt to end up on your bed and then one step at a time place your feet on the ladder and step your legs on each rung until you can get your legs onto the bed. Using your arms behind you on the bed is your strength to help you pivot your body onto the bed as your legs climb the ladder to bed height. Hopefully that make sense as I'm describing it. It's been amazingly helpful since day 1! I've also switched the side of the bed I use each week so I balance out my strength on each side of my body. If I used only one side of my bed for 4 weeks, I'm sure I'd be more weak on the other side than I am. 2) My husband's grandmother's trusty cane with sticky duct tape on the end when I need to pick something up from the floor. When I needed help walking with it after I tore my groin muscle I took the sticky tape off of course. But the cane is great because of the hook side to pick up clothes or towels I might have dropped and the sticky duct tape end allows me t pick up paper and almost anything (ie lotion bottles etc). It's amazing how much I drop in a day!
Those two simple handy tools saved me from lots of pain and frustrations during my recovery.
Better but still in swell hell -- big left leg and left butt cheek j
I thought I post a ray of sunshine compare to my last post. I'm feeling emotionally much better and have more energy ... which is an incredible improvement in and of itself. So I'm celebrating that. Onedimsim told me about Wobenzym N which I think has made a difference in my recovery. But unfortunately my left leg and left buttock swelling still hasn't subsided. I'm walking very carefully but the swelling increases so its a bit of a catch 22. But the other good news is that my incisions are healing really well and remaining closed through all of this long term swelling. Very happy with that and a testament to Dr. Ness's masterful work. My right leg is great. It feels healthy, flexible and strong. Which is how both legs would be if I hadn't pulled the tissue in my left leg/groin. Inch by inch is my daily theme. Other things you may want to know as I'm nearly at 4 weeks: I still stand at the toilet for all my toilet activities, I wear my CG 24/7 (its a love hate relationship but more love than hate), I'm wearing the next smaller size which is great for right leg and like sausage casing on left leg, I'm not sitting because of groin and swelling on left leg, but I can lounge well, keeping groin creases clean is critical ... Using water and hibecleanse mixture 2xday with qtip, and am putting soft gauze in creases to wick away moisture and help with chafing on swollen leg and groin, I am definitely on low sodium diet since surgery and will continue to until well past swelling, I'm a clean eater anyway so not much change in diet, bananas, salads with vinegar dressing, no sugar, very little carbs, red pepper hummus, vegan protein drink for breakfast with almond milk and banana. Trying to do sedentary leg exercises so I don't have complete atrophy. Will start using arm weights again this week to keep upper body strong. I have an inversion table in our bedroom so I lay on it and go slightly inverted a few times a day and I rock slight inverted on it as well. It feels great and is a nice alternative to laying. Always keeping legs elevated and still alternating ice and slight warmth on left leg. I can stand completely straight but left leg isn't super comfortable straight ... I need to work on that. I'm still not going out much so going a but stir crazy. Not traveling this week as I was supposed to be. I think it would have been pretty uncomfortable even if I didn't have the set back. That's all for now. Hope you're all well!