Observations/tips two days ish after LL surgery

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still having problems w/ accidental clicks from transferring from one surface to another (ex: wheelchari to bed, taxi to wheelchair, bed to wheelchair). When accidental clicks happen during a transfer, it doesn't quite hurt as much as cause alot of stress/sudden feeling, sweating, feeling of lack of stability and fear of falling

The 'grab the bed at random places with both fists', pull, and slide forward completely straight when lying on the bed has helped alot in decreasing accidental clicks. In general keeping the legs straight helps alot but is sometimes a bit difficult to figure out how to keep the legs straight

But its harder when there are inherently angles in the situation (ex: transfer from wheelchair to bed, you can't just fall straight into the bed straight, you have to sort of park your wheelchair side by side with the bed)

One of my wound dressings has gone loose, has been oozing/bleeding, messaged the nurse on whatsapp, not sure if I should do anything else

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Very, very tight quads, confused, it wasn't like this the first day after surgery

trying to constantly stretch quads at least gently with pillow setup (sitting up, knee to chest, heel towards butt gently)

But quads so tight I can't bicycle in some setups due to range of motion issues, gotta find a solution

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At some point after coming to your location for LL, a nurse recommended I get an ice pack

The purpose is to help with the pain right after you finish clicking

I am not sure it would be good to use if you are about to stretch later though, maybe only use when finished for the day or just in alot of pain? not sure

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Especially right before a click happens, certain muscles will tense up

it is a bit easier once I could really feel which muscles were tensing up and then relax those specifically

there is sort of a twisting feeling associated with the leg right before the click and it feels as if you kinda let that twisting feeling happen in the tissue and not fight it w/ contractions

I sort of feel the contraction and then pause and think and try to relax those muscles that just contracted and then continue pushing forward for the click

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if I were to do it again, I'd get a slightly bigger fanny pack, there is not much downside to it, you can hold more stuff, don't have to worry about stuff falling out of your pocket, it doesn't really get in the way during physical therapy sessions provided its not like massive

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Generally want to put the pee bottle on flat surfaces, not the bed, because .. well you know

You can take the pee bottle from hospital to the hotel with you (ask)

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How do you normally resolve tightness in the muscles? Or do you just wait for it to pass?

Also, when you order things to the hotel (e.g. groceries), do the staff bring it up to you?

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Quote from: thankscience on September 20, 2022, 10:09:46 PMHow do you normally resolve tightness in the muscles? Or do you just wait for it to pass?

Also, when you order things to the hotel (e.g. groceries), do the staff bring it up to you?

I apologize, I am still trying to work out the first question tbh. Because I am early in the process, the muscle tightness isn't excruciating, but it is stopping me from doing cycling esp my left quad so I've just been stretching it gradually. I am lucky that any painful muscle spasms I've gotten so far are very small and brief. But I've only done a bit less than 1 cm

I apologize, I actually have not ordered groceries yet but am looking through the apps to do this. I feel pretty certain that if I ordered food, the hotel would call me with the phone that is in each room and then I'd ask them to bring it up to me. The reason I feel relatively certain they would do this is that they do bring up the hotel's breakfast to me when I ask

Any Montaza hotel LL veterans want to chime in?

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Quote from: Issun-Boshi on September 18, 2022, 08:15:29 AMThanks for sharing your experience.

Out of curiosity - what's making you afraid?

The first weeks of LL, you get a taste of what it would be like to not walk again and you get a taste of what things could be like if things go wrong

The helplessness, the pain, the tightness, the thighs feeling like they are 1000 pounds, the somewhat less than ways to deal w/ pee/poo when you can't physically walk to the bathroom yourself, a certain feeling instability on the legs even when I use a walker (its getting better though)

And its like "if my recovery doesn't go well, maybe the future will look something like this"

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So after thinking about it, I think you really want your shorts to be way softer, more elastic, and looser than you think you need. Probably the post surgery button tearaway shorts is optimal but if you can't get that then just a very very soft and very large and elastic pair of shorts would be good. I'd say don't even use their pockets for fear of something falling out (pretty easy for that to happen), just use a big fanny pack to store stuff you want to bring with you.

Really the only point of the shorts is so you don't have to show your privates to the physical therapists, you want the shorts to just get out of the way functionally and not cause any discomfort