Despite not sleeping much due to loud trucks removing some of the snow in the streets all night long in preparation for the next big storm, I woke up in a surprisingly good mood! This rarely happens, and when it does, I often have no idea why, but I feel thankful. It was another uncomfortable night on the couch, but my knee wasn’t in too much pain, so I only took Tylenol for pain medicine, along with the aspirin for blood clots. I wasn’t sure if Tylenol helped to reduce the swelling or not, so I decided to rotate it with ibruprofen. My better spirits allowed me to try putting weight on my surgery leg today. It felt better than yesterday!
After breakfast, it was time to unwrap the bundle and finally see what it looked like underneath! Wendy said I could do this in the afternoon. I figured that 1pm was a perfectly fine time.

I hadn’t realized that my entire leg was wrapped with ace bandages! It was a good thing that this thing was coming off because flexing my foot was causing the bandage to dig into the skin of my heel.

My ice pack (which only keeps it cool at best).

Why are my legs such different colors?

My surgery leg was locked in a semi-bent state due to the swelling. This made it very difficult to attempt to walk!
I took my first shower since the surgery, and it went very smoothly!
Then, I looked at the exercises I was supposed to do. No one told me when I was supposed to start them, but I figured that now that the bandages were removed, it was a good time to do so! I noticed that I still smelled like iodine! (Erik told me that I would smell like the hospital for a long time!)

They only gave me these few simple exercises to do for the next 2 weeks (before I saw my surgeon for a check in). My knee was so swollen and stiff that I didn’t know how I was possibly going to be able to bend and straighten my leg! (my paperwork said it should be bending normally within 3-5 days!) I started with very small movements. They told me that I was going to lose a lot of strength after the surgery, but I couldn’t really understand why. I was only incapacitated for a few days. I tried the leg raises and my injured leg shook so much. How had it gotten so weak?!

On the floor, tightening my quads.

By the end of the night, I was able to do this! I felt proud! I decided to see what else I could do… Chair pose, check! Chair pose with a twist, check! Lunge, check! Wide straddle forward fold, check! Stand on my injured leg and raise my good leg into the air (kind of!). I felt satisfied. I decided to bring my couch pillows to my bed and sleep there for the first time. It was a good decision!