Looking Forward to Better Times

Surgery has been a really social event for me. Most of it has gone extremely well, and I've had a lot of good company at the hospital and now at home. I had a couple or three really bad hours the second day when the femoral nerve block faded and the pain took its place.

About two hours into that, my friends from Oregon called. Blake completed his second knee replacement in December. Blake and Jo Ann were both on the phone, and without even saying hello, Jo Ann told me,"Charlotte, we want you to know the pain never gets worse than this." And Blake agreed. They timed it perfectly, and I relaxed. An hour later, all was well.

The rehab hospital was everything I had hoped. Three hours a day, I had physical or occupational therapy. From the third day, I walked down two long halls to therapy, unassisted on my walker. I came home after a week because by the third day, I had reached 100 degrees of motion and could hold the knee down flat. And that is a tribute to the hours of therapy I put into prepapring for this. I didn't even need help dressing the second day!

In rehab, I saw many patients of other doctors. Some had the white compression stockings. I think some used the machine that straightens, then bends the knee automatically. I don't think it matters too much, so long as we exercise and get no infections.

Yeah, it's still sore. Since the surgery, though, I am standing differently and my lower back no longer hurts. I trundle the walker down the drive to pick up the paper, then again to get the mail. A therapist comes 3 times a week and the nurse comes twice a week. I run through exercises twice every day.

I see the doctor July 5 and hope then I will be able to drive and stop taking the damn coumadin. I am beginning to get hints of the change in my life that is coming. With only one knee repaired, I will be able to do so much more. When I do the second knee next summer, it will move my internal clock back years. Wow.

I suspect one reason so many older people are living quality lives so much longer today is due to knee and hip replacements. I know my orthopedist believes that.

Matt mentioned that it was a REALLY bad knee. I understand one can, if one wishes, see a knee replacement operation on YouTube. Now, I used to be a medical writer. Saw a bunch of operations and wrote about them. One of my doctor's operating staff wandered in the third day and said more than I really wanted to hear about extreme hammering and chiseling. I know the whole leg was black and blue, and my surgeon prides himself on not leaving much brusing.

Nope, I don't really need to know more.

I have a few things else I want to say, though, so I'll probably post a couple more times on knee replacements and me before getting on to something else.