Friday marked the 1 week point and I practically sprang out of bed. So far so good! My kids are heading to Florida to stay with the grandparents for a few days and my son was in desperate need of a few new clothes so I had him up and out the door with me by 8:00. The night before I had drove for the first time so I knew I "could". Just minor complications - I didn't have my handicap parking pass yet because my post-op appointment isn't until next Wednesday. Maybe I'm not supposed to be driving yet either but I'm not on narcotics so why not?
When the dear son and I got to the local JCP, I was feeling pretty frisky on a sunny bright but brisk day and opted to crutch my way to the back of the store rather than use their wheel chair. I did pretty darn good if I do say so myself though on the way back to the front to pay I was running out of steam.
By the time we made it home I was pretty tired and actually hurting a little bit. I might have over-done it. I tried to "sit" the rest of the day and spent some time stretched out in bed but I'm just not a sitting kind of person. By bedtime I was pretty sore.
I did spend some minutes reflecting over the past week and what I had found "difficult". I had mostly lived 24/7 in pajama pants or yoga pants with socks. Those were good choices. Changing pants is a bit difficult so just sleeping in what I had on all day was easiest. The only problem with both is that they don't have pockets. Remember, you don't have much use of your hands when moving around so pockets would have been handy.
Lesson: Pajama or yoga pants with pockets would be very helpful.
Putting on my tennis shoes for that first shopping trip was impossible. Son had to tie them for me. My Croc's were much easier to get on and off without drama. I put boots on Thursday night and while they were easy to go on, coming off wasn't so good on the hip.
Lesson: Think about footwear in advance - plan what will work easiest.
On Saturday we had to run out a couple of times and I found that my regular purse was just too heavy to lug on crutches and opted to leave it in the car. Because the dumb yoga pants didn't have pockets, I really had nowhere to stash ANYthing.
Lesson: A small backpack type purse or crossover body bag would probably be a good choice while on crutches. And think minimalist.
Prior to this surgery I had never been on crutches before. And while I'm not finding them particularly hard to use, the dang things SLIDE off everything you lean them against!! You'd think in the zillion years that the things have been around someone would have adapted them so this wouldn't happen. Seriously, they fall to the ground and you can't get them because you aren't supposed to be bending that far...so then what? I'm thinking at minimum some duct taped wrapped around that top 1/3 from handles to arm pits would at least make them less slippery. Some foam pipe insulation would probably work pretty darn good too. I wonder if Pinterest has ideas.....
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