Arthroscopic Knee Surgery: Post Op Days 2-4

by Bryan on 2/7/2009 at 6:15 PM in Health and Fitness

After finishing up my last post, I took a vicodin and headed to bed. It took a few minutes to get settled into bed, but I was quickly out. I didn't wake up again until 6 AM (normal workday time to get up), even though all alarms were turned off. Fortunately I was able to get right back to sleep, and didn’t get up again until 11 AM.

When I finally did get up, I was just a wee bit groggy—aftereffects of the anesthesia, perhaps? My knee felt good. Sure, it was a little stiff, and the slightest bit sore when I first got up, but that quickly went away. I spent most of Wednesday on the couch, with the knee propped up, and the Iceman cooler running. I was even able to get some work done, and went for a short walk (okay, it was really more of a hobble).

Day 3 post op was much like day 2, except I didn’t sleep as well, I ditched the crutches, and I spent more time working while sitting at a desk. So maybe day 3 and day 2 weren’t all that similar. The knee continued feeling better, I went another day without pain medicine, and I ran the Iceman most of the day. By the end of day 3, my knee was a little sore and a little stiff from sitting in a chair for so much of the day, but nothing too bad.

Just as with the night before, I didn’t sleep well between day 3 and 4. It’s really hard to get comfortable when half of your leg is tightly wrapped in bandages. Nevertheless, I was up bright and early on the morning of day 4 because this was finally the day to take of the bandages! This is really only important for two reasons: 1) I could now shower, and 2) I could finally scratch that itch that had been driving me crazy! These were two things I was very eager to do.

One by one, I took the layers of bandages off. First, it was off with the ace bandages. Next came two layers of gauze, and a large gauze pad, until finally there was a lone yellow rectangular bandage covering the incisions. While the rest of the layers had come off quickly, this last yellow bandage was being quite stubborn, having decided to stick to the sutures. Finally, after several minutes, I was finally free and clear of any and all bandages! Of course that only lasted a minute or two, because I had to cover the three incisions with band-aids. But now I could shower! And scratch that itch!

With the bandages off, I was finally able to get a look at my knee. It looked pretty much as I had expected—bruised and swollen. Moving around without the bandages took a little getting used to, since I no longer had the support and stability that they provided. And without the bandages providing compression on my knee, it was slightly sore for most of the day. Of course that could also have been due to sitting in a chair working all day. By the end of the day, I was tired and just a little tempted to take something to help me sleep better, but I didn’t.

I’ll leave you with one last picture—a side-by-side comparison of my knees, so that you can see just how swollen the right knee is. Due to the swelling on the inside part of my leg, slightly above the knee, it almost looks like I’ve got two left legs. This picture was take Friday morning, after removing the bandages, but before taking a shower (notice the orange tint still on my leg).