Did you know that tourniquets are applied to the thighs
(quadriceps muscle) during knee replacement.
Since I waited too long to get my left knee replaced it was a more
complicated project. Instead of 35
minutes, it actually took over an hour.
Because of the nerve block, the cutting of my knee joints do not hurt at
all. My quads, however feel like I decided
to do squats for the first time ever on Wednesday and did 250 reps with a
couple of hundred pounds. My left leg is
larger than my right for the first time since the 1970’s casting of it. The Physical Therapist tells Carol that my
leg will look like an eggplant. Actually
both will, but left already is. I sleep
for was seems like hours only to wake up with 5-15 minutes having passed. I greet this observation passively. Oxy, I think.
I am going home Friday.
But my exploding quads and the wearing off of the nerve block in the
joints themselves, which were just cut off with a saw are making that an iffy
proposition. Thursday night I am greeted
with a physical problem: crashing blood pressure and rising pulse.
It turns out that the intense bruising from the tourniquet
had dropped my red blood cell count from 33 to 25, or around 25%. So my heart is beating a lot faster than it
should and I don’t like it. But there is
no way I am I staying Friday night here.
Except that in order to stay, I have to sign some kind of form because
they give blood transfusions when someone’s red count drops so fast. They do those in hospitals. I am not stay Friday night. I did get to see UM beat Indiana. Sort of.
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