Week five of my recovery brought with it my first legitimate post operative accident. I was in my daughters room and had a crutch slip out from under me when it was accidentally placed on a pile of coloring books and papers. As I began to fall forward my natural instincts kicked I broke my fall — with my broken leg. I realized my mistake immediately as all my weight started shifting to my bum leg. Terrified by the warnings from my surgeon not to put any weight on my leg, I awkwardly finished stumbling to the floor using my arms. While my leg didn’t seem to feel any worse after the fact, I’m still concerned about the potential ramifications of my spill. There’s no doubt that I put a significant amount of weight on my leg before realizing what I was doing. Accidents happen. I will have to hope that I didn’t manage to ruin any of my surgeon’s hard work.
Accidents aside, my leg is still sore, but no longer feels especially broken. In fact, like some sort of cruel joke, I feel as though it’s sort of taunting me to use it. That’s not supposed to happen, in any capacity, for another four to six weeks sadly. The top part of my leg aches pretty badly when my leg is in the wrong position. I keep wondering if it’s one of the screws in my tibial plateau causing the pain.
There’s a certain irony in having pain in a limb that is, at least on the surface, incredibly numb. It’s difficult to explain, but any time that something touches my leg, it feels as though it’s happening through a few inches of foam. It’s a really bizarre and uncomfortable feeling. I’ve been told that this numbness will improve over time but may never go away completely.
Following the advice of my surgeon, I’ve been wearing a compression sock on my leg for almost two weeks now. While it’s not especially comfortable or stylish it has markedly improved the swelling in my leg and foot. I put the sock on in the morning before work and generally take it off after dinner at some point. When the sock comes off my leg and ankle are much closer to the size they ought to be. My only real complaint about the sock thus far, aside looking like a one legged LeBron James, is that it’s a bit of a struggle to get the sock on and off.
Completely not following the advice of my surgeon I started driving my car again. Luckily I drive an automatic so not having the use of my left leg isn’t much of a detriment. Getting in and out of the car with crutches is somewhat awkward, but having a little bit of freedom and normalcy back is well worth any amount of discomfort or hassle!
