Tag: surgery

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Progress report

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.

 

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Busy, busy

I’ve been more than usually remiss with posting in the blog. I didn’t get a chance to do much during the election, whose results were an improvement. How much of an improvement remains to be seen, but an improvement nonetheless.

My issue is that I was finally approved for knee replacement surgery in June and have been working with the date for surgery I was given then. This was approximately the end of February, or possibly, early March.

This resulted in a number of issues, such as dealing with my classes scheduled for next semester and finding a replacement instructor or instructors. The question also arose as to whether I would teach the first part of the semester and have my replacement step in when I went for surgery.

This got turned around a bit last month when I discovered that my surgical date would be early January rather than later. Suffice to say, I’ve been trying to finalise things in a huge hurry. I need to do a bunch to things around the house to get ready for the winter, as well as now needing to be prepared for work things to be arranged before that point as well.

This does clarify how my teaching schedule will pan out next term. From a budget standpoint, it does mean replacing me for the full term. However, several classes I was scheduled to teach were cancelled and this does provide a cheaper solution.

This also means a spate of more or less last minute medical appointments to prep for the surgery.

Now, after six repair jobs, there really isn’t much to do with what’s left of this knee beyond replacing it. Four of those, by the way, were during the 1970s, when knee surgery was a thing of cold chisels, pry bars, and big hammers. This is very much like that, although with a far daintier end result. And, I am really looking forward to that end result.

I was told In 1985 that I needed a replacement knee. The surgeon I saw at the time did offer the additional comment that I “might want to wait until they got better at making them.” I didn’t know the wait would be quite this long…

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The first great adventure

For some reason, after a week of being confined to the house and the hospital, I was getting a little shack-wacky. So, since I felt reasonable, I figured I take a run down and get a coffee. But, this took a bit of logistical planning.

We loaned one of the vehicles out so I only had the pickup. However, it was hooked up to the boat. I can disconnect the wires and chains, but can’t lift the hitch off the trailer. I’ve been given a 20 lb weight limit for the next six weeks and there are moments when I think I probably couldn’t lift that much.  Clara saved the day by lifting the trailer off the boat and putting the tongue on blocks. Thanks, Honey.

So, I headed downtown, saw a few people, grabbed a coffee, bought some drugs, and, after an hour and 15 minutes, was ready to head home. I was out of steam but made sure I hadn’t overdone it. Not bad for a week after surgery. I will admit that a nap followed shortly afterwards.

So, thus endeth my first post surgery adventure. Cue the Indiana Jones theme at any time…

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Deja vu… encore

Well, I went off to see the surgeon again the other day to get his perspective on my incisional hernia. My family doctor’s comments were not what I was hoping to hear. It went along the lines of, “Oh, it’s let go completely. Back to the body shop for you.”

At the consult, the surgeon sort of agreed. I say, “Sort of” since I don’t have an incisional hernia. I have two. I feel like I”ve been bulk shopping, although this probably wasn’t my planned purchase.

What happened? Well, 10% of abdominal surgeries do develop a later hernia. Also, remember my little slip on the ice on Christmas Eve? That was probably the biggest contributor to my current ills. And, the fact that both incisions got infected probably threw in a last two cents (of course, that’s now rounded up to a nickel) that was needed.

It’s not an emergency so I’m going in the regular rotation. No, I’m not coming in relief in the eighth inning. It means that I go for surgery at the end of July or in August. It means a three-day stay in hospital and no lifting for two months. If this is the brass ring, I think I’d like off this merry-go-round at any time.

This better not cut into my fishing…