It’s been almost two weeks since my knee replacement, so I figured I should fire out a quick line on where I am right now.
I still have quite a bit of pain. When you consider that the surgery involves cutting the ends of the bones off, hammering and gluing metal replacement mating surfaces on the end of the tibia and femur, and cutting one of the largest muscles in the human body and stapling that back together, I’m not really surprised. My biggest problem these last few days is my left hip and left hamstring. Both scream at me constantly and I don’t really sleep much at night because of it. I suspect it comes from learning how to walk properly again and I assume it will go away eventually.
I may have avoided a nasty infection in my knee. This is a bad thing, but after three days on antibiotics, I’m feeling much better. This is important, since infection is the worst case scenario for a knee replacement. At the really bad end of the scale, it requires removing the new joint, waiting until the infection clears, and then reinstalling it.
The infection has me behind on my exercises, though. Rehabbing a joint involves mixing pain and frustration and scheduling this regularly. I do want to get back on track and go back to my regular physio appointments Mondays and Wednesdays. These were to start Wednesday, but my physiotherapist thought visiting the emergency room and dealing with my infection was a better idea.
I can’t wait until I’m allowed to drive again. This should be any time now, and it’s not like I’m going anywhere specific. I dislike not being able to get up and go when I want to. And, as you can imagine, I probably suffer from unsurvivable boredom.
One more thing for the progress report. I still have a sizable number of staples in my knee. These come out Monday and I’m looking forward to getting them out. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say I’m looking forward to having them out. The “getting” part is not my favourite past time. I could post a picture, but a rather long incision picture with about 40 staples doesn’t appeal to most people. Suffice to say, I look like an office supplies accident, and leave it at that.
Doug Rutherford 