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Andy finally came home from the hospital yesterday. He would've been allowed to come home Friday, but he'd had a fever off and on since the surgery, and they were worried that it could be a sign of infection. His white count remained normal, though, and the fever was pretty low, so they did finally spring him on Saturday. They said that some people just get a fever after surgery for no particular reason. As much as I appreciated all the care he was getting at the hospital, the drive in every day (sometimes twice) was killing me. Once it took me 45 minutes to go those 9 miles! I was also tired of looking at the parentheses on this sign near the elevators every day:

(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)(Just be glad I did resist sharing the photo of Andy's incisions instead....)

This hospital stay unfortunately coincided with the tail end of an important project I had agreed to take long before the surgery was scheduled, so I've been burning the candle at both ends all week—taking care of the kids and house, visiting Andy, and scrambling to finish this project. In the middle of it all, I had to go get a new wheel on my car and then, the icing on the cake: a sewer backup in the basement! I should put Roto-Rooter on speed dial.

Anyhow, so now that he's home, it's obviously much easier to "visit" him and bring him what he needs, but it's hard for him because of the stairs, the non-hospital bed, and so on. He's quite good with the crutches, but he's still in terrible, terrible pain. The meds help only a little. He's not the type to complain much, but this is putting him over the edge. Today the physical therapist came to the house and tortured him further. Everyone told us that a knee replacement is the worst post-op recovery there is, but I still don't think he imagined it would be this bad.

[Update 2/8/12: I'm getting a ton of spam here lately, so I'm closing off comments on this post. Feel free to email me if you have something non-spammy to add!]

Comments

[Tonya Watkins]

My MIL had BOTH knees replaced at the same time (she insisted). Her recovery was actually pretty good, but she'd been in such over-the-top agony beforehand that possibly the aftermath didn't compare to what she'd been through before the surgery. Not really sure how she did it, though, with a do-nothin' husband to come home to...

[Stephanie]

My MIL had knee replacements (separately); she has a strong threshold for pain, but it was REALLY bad.

[Rachel]

Next time, come to Newton-Wellesley...we don't have annoying typos on our signs, the commute is a lot better and the orthopaedic surgeons are amazing. Just sayin. ;)

[Elena]

Sending lots of positive thoughts and prayers for a quick recovery!