How Do You Spell Relief?

 Years ago, there was a commercial for Rolaids that asked the question "How do you spell relief?" Instead of the obvious answer being R-E-L-I-E-F, the answer they gave was R-O-L-A-I-D-S  so you would purchase their product to provide stomach acid pain relief.

Today, I will answer that question with A-S-P-I-R-A-T-I-O-N. Since the set-back after my knee surgery (mentioned in my last post), my knee has been very swollen and very painful, making it difficult to walk or sleep. I have had very little movement in my knee since the surgery 11 days ago. 

Thankfully, while at my 2nd follow-up appointment this morning at my surgeon's office, the PA (Bob) suggested that we aspirate the blood from my knee in order to speed up the healing process. Jokingly, he said it would take until September for the body to absorb all of the blood that was pooled inside there. I agreed to go through the procedure, knowing that it would probably not be a very pleasant undertaking. I was right. Most of the pain was a result of numbing the knee before inserting a bigger needle to extract the blood. About 35 cc's of blood was extracted.

Call me crazy, but I had to take a picture of it. I was kind of amazed at the amount of blood that was extracted. Hopefully, my knee won't fill up with blood again. I guess that's a possibility. I really don't want to have that procedure repeated any time soon.

Right now, my knee is wrapped in an ace bandage,

 but starting tomorrow I will be wearing a neoprene compression sleeve like this to prevent the knee from swelling, only in a blue and grey color.

I'm confident that my knee will now heal much faster. I'm thankful for that. I'm tired of having to sit in my recliner for most of the day in order to elevate and ice my knee. I want to be able to be out and about and moving freely once again. The physical therapy I will be starting tomorrow should help. 

After two hip replacement surgeries and one knee surgery, I have been immobile for weeks at a time over the past year. Mobility was a blessing I took for granted until that blessing was taken away from me.  Here's to getting back on my feet again and being able to walk around pain free. That would be such a great blessing!