Sunday mornin' comin' down

There was something about the way Isaac's hair glistened while he was chewing a bone Sunday morning that reminded me of Kris Kristofferson's song "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down."

I guess I'm easily reminded of whiskey these days because I'm in the midst of a two-month self-imposed whiskey-sipping hiatus for my knee replacement surgery. If all goes as planned, I'll be able to enjoy a fine Manhattan, or perhaps a Lagavulin on the rocks, for the 4th of July.

I tried several non-alcoholic whiskey options while I was preparing for knee surgery, and Three Spirit Nightcap is the least-bad option I've found. It has kind of a "whiskey for kids" feel — more sugar, less bite — but makes for a nice little treat after a PT workout.

Blogging

I was planning to do some blogging while recovering from knee surgery. Not knee surgery blogging, but rather some writing about more eclectic and interesting topics.

In the first week, though, knee surgery recovery is pretty much all I've been doing or thinking about. So I guess this will be a second knee surgery blog post. I'll try to avoid an addiction to knee surgery blogging, just as I'm currently striving to avoid addiction to oxycodone and teetotalling. Maybe just one more knee post after my six-week follow-up with the surgeon, when I should have a nice X-ray of the new knee to share.

By the way, if you're actually interested in blogging and videos about the details of knee replacement surgery recovery, here are a few experts I've found useful:

Talking With Docs is two Canadian orthopedic surgeons, Dr. Brad Weening and Dr. Paul Zalzal, who cover a wide range of medical topics with a sense of humor on their YouTube channel and website. Their motto is "YOU are in charge of your health."
Dr. Samantha Smith is a physical therapist who specializes in knee replacement surgery pre-hab and re-hab. She has many good videos on YouTube, even more content on her website, and a very active Facebook group with over 30,000 members. I've purchased her Post Surgery Knee Replacement Course, and it's great.
Dr. Mike Ochoa is a physical therapist with a large (>40K) following on his Move with Dr. Mike YouTube channel. He has hundreds of free videos that cover pre-op and post-op routines for a variety of surgical procedures, with a constant focus on building strength and flexibility. He's a young muscular guy, but has expertise in strength-building issues and options for seniors.

Drugs

It wouldn't be right to do a knee surgery blog post with "comin' down" in the title that doesn't ramble on about drugs at some point. I'm taking a bunch of drugs after my surgery, including anti-inflammatories, blood thinners, antibiotics (for the first 24 hours only), and others. There are also a few things they prescribed for me that I've not taken, because I don't need them, and for pain meds I'm taking over-the-counter Tylenol regularly, and oxycodone as needed.

Knee surgery is different from most other surgeries in that you need to be doing exercises to build strength and flexibility right away, before the swelling goes down and before scar tissue forms – if you wait for those things, it will be too late to build the flexibility you need for a normal gait and range of motion.

What this means, in practical terms, is that you're constantly alternating between extremes, using ice and the pain meds to get the swelling and pain down and then pushing hard on stretching and PT exercises, which ramps the pain and swelling back up. And for most people, especially those who want to have a physically active lifestyle after knee replacement, you may need to repeat that routine for months.

High-level overview of my pain meds so far, as of 2PM Sunday 5/18. Not pictured: a brief blast of fentanyl around noon on Tuesday 5/13.

Speaking of drugs, I had a new experience on Tuesday in the recovery room: fentanyl. The PACU nurse offered me the infamous headline-grabbing drug because I was feeling quite a bit of pain despite the nerve block, and I took him up on it. Within seconds, I went from painful grimacing to cracking jokes and not a care in the world. Easy to see how one could get carried away with that stuff.

Well, that's probably enough rambling for today, I guess I'll click Publish. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to think of something non-knee-related to blog about.

My care provider keeps sending me these to-do lists every day. Time to get back to it.