Moons Over My Hammy - Surgery Tips!

As an aside, I forgot how much I used to enjoy coming up with fun names for my entries. I've begun to think about them with renewed vigor, so I hope you like this one. Now, gather round, children. Let me tell you some of what I learned about hamstring surgery.

I also want to acknowledge in advance that I've mixed first person ("I did") and second person ("you should") in this post. In the immortal words of Whitney Houston, it's not right, but it's okay.

Prep
In the week beforehand, I tried to do as much internet research as possible. According to the hospital rep, the surgery and ensuing recovery would be long, but not especially difficult. According to the internet, it would be the worst experience of my life. I decided the real story was somewhere in the middle. This guy's blog was extremely helpful. Some things I did to prepare include:

• Canceled travel plans. I had a work trip and high school reunion scheduled less than a week after surgery.
• Canceled my monthly gym membership. I'd started running at a running gym and got into a good rhythm but obviously didn't want to keep paying for a membership I won't use for a couple months.
• Got pre-surgery authorization and tests done. This included a check-up and bloodwork.
• Made arrangements with my dogwalker. My building has 3 flights of stairs, so I had her walk Phoebe for all three walks through the middle of the week, at which point I was able to make it downstairs and take her out for quick bathroom breaks (not long walks, though). 
• Deep-cleaned my apartment. I wanted to have a clean and orderly place since I was going to be stuck. This included doing a lot of laundry.
• Bought a lot of groceries. I was concerned about eating too much and not exercising at all, so I tried to keep it as healthy as possible. I got a lot of spinach and carrots, some frozen dishes, and enough bread, peanut butter, and jelly to make a whole stack of PB&J for easy consumption.
• Made a spare set of keys. This was one of my better ideas, and allowed me to leave keys downstairs for my guests, since my building doesn't have a buzzer and I otherwise would've had to go up and down all the stairs to let them in.
  

Surgery
This is the boring part, since I wasn't awake for any of it. I found what seems to be a surgical procedure paper for what I had. If I'm being honest, I didn't understand most of it but what I did understand was pretty cool. As far as timelines go, my surgery happened around 12pm, finished a little after 2pm, and I got home between 7 and 8pm.

Recovery

Attire:
I went into this thinking I would be living in sweats the whole time, because that's the only thing that fit over this brace. Quickly, though, I realized that was going to be extremely cumbersome and so my uniform became running shorts and t-shirts. In hindsight, I wish I'd thought about what I wanted to be wearing so I could dig up my favorite running shorts and shirts for easy access.

I figured out a lot of things, but how to put a sock on my brace foot was not one of them.

Helpful Items:

• Slip-on shoes - convenient for when you can bend almost not at all
• Grabber - same. Helpful for light switches, dropped phones, trash, etc.
• Extra pillows - I devised a pillow system. There are work pillows, sleeping pillows, and leg pillows. I urge you to think about your pillow system.
• Power outlet - It's 2019 and everything needs to be charged. Get a power strip that's within reach of your arms or your grabber.
• Food - Trader Joe's is your friend.
• Baby wipes - You'll thank me later.
• Shower chair - I think everyone probably has their own shower system. Mine required use of a chair I wouldn't have otherwise expected to purchase for another 45-50 years.
• Paper towels - Optional except if you have a neurotic pet.

These are my early impressions, but I intend to be back with more.

Bonus pic of Phoebe keeping me company