Injuries part 2
Clint Esposito
Surgery
You and your Doctor have discussed, you are going to need surgery. First make sure you trust the Doctor you are using. I can not stress that enough, find a good doctor. Doctors are Human mechanics and just like any other kind of mechanic there are good ones and bad ones.
Second, Its going to SUCK.. You will be pumped full of so much stuff to make you relax, not feel pain, not get infected, make sure you don't get blood clots and finally make you go to “sleep” for a certain amount of time. You would surly die if you mixed this many drugs on your own. When I get out of surgery or the hospital for that matter I’m amazed my kidneys haven't shut down pretty much every time.I haven’t even mentioned the actual procedure yet. You are going to get cut open and they are going to use knives, drills, screws, plates ext. To use such things they will have to cut you open and move stuff around, thats not supposed to be moved around.
Why do I bring all this up?
- Its the truth/sorry the truth hurts
- this is to illustrate why you and your leg or whatever feels so crazy
Here is what to focus on/good points.
- That concoction of drugs will make sure you don’t remember the surgery and feel as minimal amount of pain as possible.
- The crazy feelings will eventually go away or at least become normal.
- This is the start of the road to recovery
Going into surgery you won’t be able to eat after midnight the night before. Unfortunately this is the case no matter if your surgery is at 9:00am or 4:00pm. So always try to schedule your surgery early if you have any say. You are going to be asked the same questions by every person that walks up to you. I’m assuming this is to make sure everyone working on you knows what you are allergic to ext. There will be a handful of questions you will be asked repeatedly, down to what are we fixing. You will have to put all of your belongings in a bag and get in your new Hospital gown, maybe some sweet socks with rubber traction pads on them. Next they will start your IV and begins to give you some of the things mentioned earlier. Usually you the the drug to relax first, I’m not sure if it makes you relax or not care. I feel like there is a fine line between the two but you won’t worry what they are poking after that. Maybe I don’t remember but I wanna say the next thing they do is give you the gas, they will have you count backwards from 100. I think they should start you at a number where you could possibly make it to 1, like 5 or 4. I’m pretty sure i have never gotten out of the 90’s before falling asleep.
Left knee
Left Tib Fib
The next thing you will be aware of is waking up in the recovery room. Now I have had conflicting experiences before in recovery. I have been woken up every 10 minutes and I have been let sleep until I woke up naturally. The latter is much better, you think being woken up at home is irritating. Try being woken up repeatedly from a drug induced sleep. This is one of my least favorite parts of surgery. Not really the waking up but how you feel when waking up. Well that and the next 4 days. lolHowever the staff in recovery is usually very friendly, once you are awake enough they will usually give you tea and gram crackers. You have never had as delicious of a gram cracker as you will after hours of not eating. This is to make sure you can hold food down. Once that is established you will be prepared to go an actual room.
The next day a physical therapist will show up to getting you moving the surgery area and up on some crutches if its a lower extremity. Yes the day after surgery they will have you up and moving the problem area. As much as you’re going what? its SO sore. I think this is one of if not the most important part of recovery. Sitting is the worst scenario for anything, vehicles, houses, computers and people. The saying “move it or lose it” is very appropriate here. You CAN lose range of motion if you are not diligent about moving it. There are two ways you can go about this, you can move it constantly on your own making progress little by little. Or you can wait for
Puncture hole where the bone came out of the skin.
physical therapy and have the physical therapist push on it really hard to make the same progress. Its up to you, the fact that my limb doesn’t move like its supposed to freaks me out and I get kind of obsessed about regaining full motion. I believe this is the reason despite all my injuries I have been to physical therapy maybe 6 times. I have been going for my leg this time because of the severity of the break, amount of hard wear put in and the fact that my ankle and foot have felt super crazy! I wanted to ask questions but apparently I’m doing really well though because every time I go in I’m told “You are doing really well” despite me thinking all week “this should be moving more than it is” “Its been a month, why is it still so swollen”
Take the medication you need. I’m lumping vitamins/minerals and pain medication all together. If you broke a bone you will need Calcium citrate for and the fallowing for breaks, all other injuries you need vitamins D3 and C and lots of it. Of course you need all of the other vitamins and minerals but those are the main ones. I’m taking 15,000 iu of D3 a day, that might seem excessive but like I said I broke a lot of stuff. When I had shoulder surgery two years ago my Doctor put me on 5,000 to give you some sore of starting point. Taking too much of these vitamins is totally safe, you will just pee it out. As far as a multi vitamin I would suggest finding a liquid multi or a nutrition shake so your body can absorb them better. Even before getting hurt I have been taking “Thrive” lifestyle supplements everyday to make sure I get all of my vitamins and minerals. A couple things I have added myself are Spirulina and or Chlorella (you can find them mixed) and Tumeric root. (You can find pills or eat lots of curry) These two both help your body repair itself and reduce swelling in joints. Apple cider vinegar is another thing I take regularly that helps your body heal but I think the major benefit is that it helps you stay “regular”. Taking all of the medication you have been prescribed will cause you to be constipated, this if because it often kills all of the bacteria in your gut. Apple cider vinegar helps regulate your good acidic levels and the bacteria in your gut making it way more effective than stool softener. Plus its natural, why hasn't the medical field fought on to this? I take all 3 normally not just when I’m injured. I think a good point to touch on relating to nutrition is diet. I’m guilty myself of letting my diet slide when I’m hurt. Its so easy to slack on what you eat when you are not working out or being active. If you are working out regularly you feel guilty for wasting all that time and effort by eating a lava fudge sunday at fridays. However your diet while you are recovering is way more important! You may think why am I so tired, I have been laying around all day. Your body is fighting a war inside and its super important to feed it vitamins and minerals from fruits and vegetables. I feel like everyone gets enough carbs and protein.
Lastly pain medication, if you are in terrible pain take your medication as prescribed. Rest is a huge part of recovery, if you are sitting there tense and in pain all day you wont be resting very much. You shouldn't need them for an extended period of time. I would test it every so often and see if I really need these pills or not. Little side knowledge, when your body becomes dependent it will start to hurt when you don’t have pills. This makes you think you still need them. Start to ween yourself off of them by waiting longer in-between pills, maybe getting to the point where you deal during the day and take them to sleep. With all that said pain pill abuse is a HUGE issue in our sport. I have seen it over and over again and even lost a really good friend to it. So please be careful, pills are not worth it. I think a lot of guys associate pain pills with that AAAAHHHHH feeling when you take one while in extreme pain. Its not the same when you aren’t hurt, plus you will become an asshole and an unreliable asshole at that. You will not be the same person I can guarantee that and it wont be for the better never has been.
incision site that didn't heal before surgery
Incision site after skin graft.
Until next time when I go overactually rehabbing the injury. Comment below if you would be interested in some videos for this every week so you can see how slow the process actually starts.
