So Wednesday, my Mom and I were running late to complete our morning routine because she had to take care of some business. Our, “Morning routine” ended up turning into, “Late afternoon routine.” It was late by the time she left my house. Sean was home because it was a snow day so he told my Mom that he would get me into bed that night.
Before my Mom left, I asked her about my tens unit. She thought for a moment and said that she would come back. She would have to come back because in order for me to take the patches from my tens unit off of my knee, she needs to pull my pants down, pull my compression socks down, remove the patches and place them on the plastic sheet they come on and then pull my compression sock back up, and then we pull my pants up.
I did some problem-solving and decided that I will just keep my Tens unit on all night. Putting my compression socks on it’s very difficult even though my Mom makes it look easy and I wasn’t like can I have Sean pull my pants down. So, when Sean got me into bed, I unbuckled my pelvis stabilizer (Where I clip my tens unit on during the day) and when Sean got me into bed, he put my tens unit in my right pocket.
I have always slept on my left side but now, after surgery, I DEFINITELY sleep on my left side! When my Mom got me out of bed in the morning, we just did the same thing in reverse and once my pelvis stabilizer was buckled, a re-clipped the tens unit to it. My Mom and I drank our medicinal tea and had breakfast. Before we began our morning routine, my Mom took the patches off of my knee.
Once we were finished, she pulled my compression sock down and was going to put the patches back on so I could turn my tens unit back on. She stared at my knee for a long while. She told me that it looked tender and looked like the patches were breaking my skin down from being on all night. she decided to move them over a little bit but my knee is only so big and the four patches go in specific places.
So the lesson learned here was that I think my skin is more sensitive than it has ever been. At least now my Mom and I know that I can’t wear my tens unit all night and I guess we’ll just have to figure that out the next time something comes up and our routine it’s affected.