The Day After

I was told after the surgery I could take the bandage off and shower in 24 hours. I took these photos about 30 hours after the surgery. I tried to wait until Paul got home from work to have him peel off the bandage and so someone would be around while in was in the shower because the pain medication made me a bit wonky. He ran late with a with a meeting and I could not wait anymore.

The first picture looks the most dramatic, but is really quite tame. The big blue thing is a Cryo/Cuff. If you follow the blue tubing from the top of my shoulder you will notice a white connector that Velcros at my chest, that connect to another piece of blue tubing which in turn connects to a thermos full of ice and water.

I rented a small pump, only $20 for the entire month, that pumps the cold water into the Cryo/Cuff. The pump cycles on and off constantly cycling fresh cold water in and the water my body has warmed out. Very cool. This thing rocks. I have been sleeping with it on and use it after my stretches. I am a week after surgery today and have very little bruising and have taken no pain medication in the past 24 hours.



The bandage looked huge! I understand after they do the arthroscopic surgery and they remove the surgical instruments from the holes they cut they then irrigate all the holes with a saline solution. The bandage is large to soak up the liquids they pump in to clean you all out afterwards, not because I was bleeding profusely or anything like that.



From the back: I have to say I would have saved myself a layer of skin back there if I had waited for Paul to get home. Down where I could not reach the tape and gave it a good yank, not pretty.



One hole in the back, which is the largest at maybe an inch long:



And two in the front, which might be 3/4 of an inch long. Each incision only has one stitch and they get taken out tomorrow morning.



The pink you see on me is due to a couple things, me taking the bandage off, red paint they used to clean everything once they put me out, and maybe cold skin due to the Cryo/Cuff.

Before the surgery, the surgeon came and talked to me for a while. He confirmed what side he would be repairing and actually signed his initials on my left upper arm in great big letters with a permanent marker telling me this was his contract to me that he would be operating on that side. I find it funny that they cleaned off the initials but I woke up to find other markings on me instead. I think those may have finally completely washed away after my shower this morning.