It’s been a month and two days since my knee surgery. I haven’t started my physical therapy yet because of a couple things.

I do, however, have my first session scheduled for July 8th. They couldn’t get me started this week because of the July 4th holiday, and their week being shorter. Thus, they are fully booked this week.

Of course, I will have to make sure my health insurance is paid up. My July payment of $99 was due 7/1. I can do it, but I will have to finagle a deal with my electric company. Our bill is $225. But, I’m telling them, “Sorry, I HAVE to pay my health insurance premium. I’ll have to catch you when I get my next paltry disability check of $182. Sorry, had knee surgery and need to make sure I go to physical therapy.”

The other hurdles I had about getting started on PT are car related. I didn’t have my car payment for June (or July) and my auto insurance was about to get canceled.

I called the company financing my car, GM Financial, and asked about bumping my next two payments to the end of my pay period. They did do that, but I had to pay $118 to do so. I was just thrilled that I was catching a break until August 12th. One hundred eighteen dollars is a lot less than my monthly payment of $290.44.

A very good, long time friend (who, btw, moved with Brian and I to Oregon in 1992) gave me $500 to rescue my auto insurance. She says it’s for a loan I gave her back in ‘92, but I’d kind of forgotten about that. I am still profoundly grateful.

I am truly blessed with amazing friends.

That’s not the end of my financial stress. My roommate, Rose (how she wants to be called in my blog), has dwindling funds also. She gets chronic UTI’s and spends a lot of time in the hospital, as they usually end up as kidney infections.

Some of my longtime readers might recall my Summer last year when I made several trips to Tampa General Hospital (a two hour drive, one way) because she had very specialized surgery related to her bladder. It was an intense six hour operation. I wrote several posts about the related stress. Anyway, it didn’t totally fix things, but she knew it wouldn’t, but it did improve another aspect of it, and that made it worth it.

My point is that she’s missed a lot of work, also. We are now, getting close to not having our rent for July. We need some help, but more on that later.

Thus, right now, it’s 1:35 am Tuesday July, 2nd, and even after taking a Xanax (alprazolam), I am sitting up downstairs very antsy with two ice packs on my surgical leg. One is on my knee and the other is curled over my ankle area. The ankle area is actually the most problematic right now, I had an allergic reaction to the adhesives on the surgical bandages which I had to wear for ten days. I had two bandages: one over the knee incision and a shorter one over the places on my lower leg where two pins were inserted to work in conjunction with the Mako robot that assisted my orthopedic surgeon. This didn’t happen for my left knee replacement and I was confused about my ankle pain being worse than my knee pain when I awoke after the surgery. It was so painful, I got a dose of morphine, before being switched out on Oxy.

The allergic reaction was like no allergic reaction I’ve ever experienced. I removed my bandage about a half-day early, I had two bright hot pink rectangles on my right leg that corresponded to the shape of the bandages. And, Lordy that scar area was looking really rough.

I guess it was two weeks ago, Rose, had just arrived home from one of her four-day stays at the hospital for a UTI/kidney infection, and I was trying to get out of the shower, I called her to help me and when she came in she looked at my knee incision and said, “I think I see some pus.” I felt the area and looked at it. It was grayish white and smooth, not wet. But, it looked like some kind of abscess forming. Fuck! “Do you want me to take you yo the ER?” Shit, I didn’t want to overreact, but I didn’t want an infection either. “Yes, I think I better go.” We climbed into her Honda and she drove me to the ER in the hospital where I had my surgery.

They took about eight vials of blood and a bottle of urine out of me. Hooked me up to a morphine and an antibiotic drip and told me they would be taking me up to get a CT scan. They were afraid I might be septic. Oh yay. Rose stayed with me for I think 3-4 hours. I was very appreciative. When they decided to admit me I told her, “Just go home. Get sleep. Thank you.”

After telling me it was possible my knee would be cut open again, or a culture taken via a long needle stuck into the wound, or possibly antibiotic shot directly into the knee, and staying for two days, they decided that it was exactly what I first suspected: an allergic reaction to the bandage adhesives. I was both relieved and annoyed—mostly relieved. But, they did set me up with a five-day course of antibiotics, just in case. Not wanting to infect a new knee that cost $90,000 (with insurance paying for a huge amount of that), I happily took the pills.

So now, I’m still healing the mess the allergic reaction gave me. A lot of the redness is gone, but the skin on my right leg is much darker than the skin on my left leg. That’s supposed to be temporary. It feels like a long term bad sunburn. I’ve been lathering it with aloe vera gel and mineral oil. Now, I’m using hydrocortisone cream and aloe. I’ll still taking antihistamines and coping with the skin around my ankle feeling stiff and crusty and painful when I move the ankle. The knee is starting to hum along nicely, but both areas are still swollen. So, I’m still using ice packs.

I have been walking more, and today, for the first time, I actually put weight on my right knee on three steps going up the stairs. I’ve only driven twice—the longest trip was about four miles round trip. With my left knee replacement I drove on day 11 and every day after.

I did some online research on respectable medical sites that told me it could take weeks to heal from this allergic reaction. It’s been about three weeks since I removed the bandages.

I was thinking of staying up all night and working two Go Fund Me campaign pages: one for me and another for Rose. I’ve been absolutely exhausted, worn out, terrified, and overwhelmed, so I haven’t done much but, take stock of the money needed. But, I think the Xanax might be starting to work, so I’m going head upstairs in a bit.

Earlier I mentioned our sad finances, so I hate to advertise it again, but if any of you readers out there can help us out, we both will be extremely grateful.

Our immediate needs are paying our rent ($1250.00), electricity ($225.00) and our water bill ($100.00). Even very small amounts are appreciated.

My PayPal account is;

aquarius2956sun@yahoo.com

My Venmo account is:

@SPAMMY0219 (that’s zero219).

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for any encouragement and any donations.

You can also get more details on my Facebook page under Pamela Sykes I’m the one who lives in Winter Springs, Florida. I also have photos of my healing process posted there. I’ve maxed out my image space here, so I’m te-using old images. I can’t post new photos until I pay for an upgrade.