#114 Post Hospital
Dec. 1st, 2022 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astralconflict I've tried to write here a few times but I've never had the energy, but today I wrote a big update for facebook so I thought I'd share it here too:
Surgery went fine, it actually ended up a lot more complicated than initially expected. On my right leg a thumb-sized piece of muscle was removed from the back of my knee and after limping for a week or so I was fine. But this time it was very different! One of the surgeons described it as 'impressively abnormal', stating that with this condition (congenital popliteal artery entrapment syndrome) there is usually some extra muscle compressing the artery, but in my case there was a lot of deformity in the muscle, including the calf which was attached in the wrong place! No wonder I've had so much pain all these years.
So this is a rare condition by itself, then I have the rarer form (congenital) and the surgeon said that this is even rarer due to the abnormal muscle. So sounds like I hit the lottery with ultra-rare condition this time around! At least the doctors were excited to see such an unusual case!
The surgeons said they had to remove a lot of muscle at the back of the knee and detach/reattach my calf muscle in the correct position. Because the surgery was more delicate than intended and muscle was reattached to bone, I woke up with a full leg cast on and an order to keep off of my leg for 6 weeks!
I was expecting to be up and running in a week or so, so it's been quite difficult. But the first week was awful. The pain was so intense I would start feeling nauseous and my vision would start going black. After about 4 days out of the hospital I had to go into A+E because the pain was too intense and my foot had started to go numb and cold.
It turned out that a) I was supposed to have been prescribed strong painkillers but instead was given nothing but paracetamol and b) my leg had begun to swell at the joints, likely because of the pain and possibly because of infection.
I got rushed straight through in A+E and given morphine, my cast was removed and the pressure lessened a lot. I ended up having to stay in the hospital overnight again as they wanted to re-do the cast properly and get my pain under control. It was pretty scary though, I've never felt so much pain in my life.
They let me out the next day with a prescription of dihydrocodeine which has been very helpful and now I'm barely taking it as the pain has lessened a lot. I have to take a blood thinner called dalteparin daily as I'm not supposed to be moving much. Most my time has been spent on the couch with my leg elevated and playing pokémon scarlet since it came out just after I got out of the hospital.
It's really thrown a wrench in my December plans though, especially as this year I wanted to do a big tidy up before new year and also make some gifts and such. My first physio session is on the 28th Dec too, so I can't really go anywhere (not that I could anyways with this cast!) But at least I've finally gotten this surgery done and I'm really looking forward to getting this cast off!
Surgery went fine, it actually ended up a lot more complicated than initially expected. On my right leg a thumb-sized piece of muscle was removed from the back of my knee and after limping for a week or so I was fine. But this time it was very different! One of the surgeons described it as 'impressively abnormal', stating that with this condition (congenital popliteal artery entrapment syndrome) there is usually some extra muscle compressing the artery, but in my case there was a lot of deformity in the muscle, including the calf which was attached in the wrong place! No wonder I've had so much pain all these years.
So this is a rare condition by itself, then I have the rarer form (congenital) and the surgeon said that this is even rarer due to the abnormal muscle. So sounds like I hit the lottery with ultra-rare condition this time around! At least the doctors were excited to see such an unusual case!
The surgeons said they had to remove a lot of muscle at the back of the knee and detach/reattach my calf muscle in the correct position. Because the surgery was more delicate than intended and muscle was reattached to bone, I woke up with a full leg cast on and an order to keep off of my leg for 6 weeks!
I was expecting to be up and running in a week or so, so it's been quite difficult. But the first week was awful. The pain was so intense I would start feeling nauseous and my vision would start going black. After about 4 days out of the hospital I had to go into A+E because the pain was too intense and my foot had started to go numb and cold.
It turned out that a) I was supposed to have been prescribed strong painkillers but instead was given nothing but paracetamol and b) my leg had begun to swell at the joints, likely because of the pain and possibly because of infection.
I got rushed straight through in A+E and given morphine, my cast was removed and the pressure lessened a lot. I ended up having to stay in the hospital overnight again as they wanted to re-do the cast properly and get my pain under control. It was pretty scary though, I've never felt so much pain in my life.
They let me out the next day with a prescription of dihydrocodeine which has been very helpful and now I'm barely taking it as the pain has lessened a lot. I have to take a blood thinner called dalteparin daily as I'm not supposed to be moving much. Most my time has been spent on the couch with my leg elevated and playing pokémon scarlet since it came out just after I got out of the hospital.
It's really thrown a wrench in my December plans though, especially as this year I wanted to do a big tidy up before new year and also make some gifts and such. My first physio session is on the 28th Dec too, so I can't really go anywhere (not that I could anyways with this cast!) But at least I've finally gotten this surgery done and I'm really looking forward to getting this cast off!
