Remember those two mysterious wounds I came away from the surgery with? Finally today, I found out what they are. A lovely retired nurse told me they are tape burns. I must have been allergic to the tape bandages the hospital was using for my leg during the surgery. It’s been over a month and the wounds are not healing fast enough. The lady told me to put Neosporin on it at night after a shower, then put gauze over it and wrap everything up with ace bandage. I’m so relieved to have an answer and a treatment plan.
Can’t believe the surgeons/doctors never told me this. Were they afraid of a law suit? I can’t think of any other reason.
With Anne’s help (my therapist), I now can walk up and down the stairs with one leg at a time, aka the normal way! I can even carry a light load while climbing or descending. That means … laundry is back on my to-do list again!
Posted by cynthia on September 4, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Congratulations on your two big milestones. Walking without crutches and doing stairs the normal way are a big deal. Stairs are so hard…especially going down. I never had a good appreciation for what we do biomechanically when we go downstairs until now. It’s pretty amazing.
Posted by Sarahdippity on September 4, 2009 at 11:23 pm
hi cynthia!
i was afraid to try going down the normal way and held back until today when the therapist basically took me to a flight of stairs and said … do it! then i was pleasantly surprised that i could do it. i think fear was my biggest problem. i’m afraid (still) to push myself, and so i play it safe until anne (my therapist) told me i could or should.
how are you doing cynthia?
Posted by cynthia on September 4, 2009 at 11:59 pm
The same exact thing happened with me…at six weeks when I was allowed off crutches. I had been going up stairs on my own (without crutches, illicitly) for about a week. My PT asked me if I could go down and I said no. He said: let’s see. He made me do it…and I could! But, it was another couple weeks before it was comfortable and not frightening. And, it’s actually really been only a week or so now that it feels 100% natural (at 14 weeks post-op). In fact, I found myself sort of scampering down the stairs earlier today. That’s really recent. So, going down stairs takes a really long time to feel solid.
Posted by Sarahdippity on October 23, 2009 at 9:26 am
Just an update about the 2 burn marks. The scabs have fallen off both of them! The last one snuck out about a week ago. Well they both were pretty sneaky in their exit strategy.