I am really sorry to hear this news...

Especially since your wife's not here to help.

Take care and I expect you will be up and at 'em soon.

I guess I'll know in a few days (or when I get the bill).

I could move around without tubes and bags.

This is the USA, not Germany. I was back at the house 3½ hours after my surgery began. It doesn't make me any more mobile, unfortunately.

doesn't sound like much fun. Take good care and do what they tell ya to do!

I'm being a good (out-)patient.

'break a leg.'

We'll be thinking of you!

I gotta repair this one first!

Believe me!

don't push too hard and hurt yourself.

I have to get used to the fact that going up or down the stairs now takes minutes and not seconds.

But I've had this before. I'll get over it and be back to normal in a few weeks. It's the first few days of immobility that go by so slowly.

I found that I healed faster from the total replacements than from the meniscus removals. Of course, going from torn and folded meniscus to bone on bone was extremely painful while the knee replacements really only hurt at the incisions - I hurt LESS the day after each replacement than I did the day before.

I agree that getting a serious injury or major surgery - or even minor surgery - can give an appreciation of what people who are permanently handicapped go through.

A tip - religiously follow the physical therapy recommendations so your knee heals the best it can. I didn't for my second meniscus removal and it never healed right. Although the other knee had been bone on bone for much longer, it was the pain from that second knee that finally forced me to get the replacements done.

I don't how you are doing this without your wife! Without my husband I never would have made it through all my injuries and surgeries.

I would never have done this alone.

I am doing my exercises. The hard part is getting up or lying down, and STAIRS!! But just tonight I took my first steps without the crutches. The longest journey, as they say.....

In 2007 we signed the contract to build our house the week before my second knee operation. The new house has the entire ground level set up to be wheelchair accessible. It wasn't until I got both knees replaced in 2012 that I went upstairs regularly.

Three days after the first knee replacement the physical therapist had me walking up and down stairs. Remember to use the good leg correctly while the bad leg is healing.

If you use the good leg wrongly, you never get back to walking normally.

It was 7 weeks before I could stop sleeping in a full leg brace (and given I can't sleep on my back to save my life, it was 7 weeks before I could get a decent night's sleep). I spent a week not putting my foot down on the floor at all (not even touch weight bearing) and then 6 weeks of building up from crutching to hobbling a few feet at a time to being able to walk peg-legged before the doctor cleared me to begin walking with a bend in my right knee. Of course being my right knee, that meant no driving for 7 weeks either.

It took 4 months before my knee was safe enough to do stairs one foot at a time. It was a year before I could start jogging. I won't be fully cleared to return to my regularly scheduled life until the middle of June 2016.

But eventually it will heal and hopefully you will be better off for having had the surgery. I feel like I am, even if I can't fully test it out yet. Plus given my new cloned cartilage, I now feel like I can be my own evil clone.

For that matter, if they do, I wish they'd do the whole thing. Not only would my workload drop by half, I could do more guitar duets. Better clone my wife, too. I wouldn't want to share her even with myself.

Today, I hope to hobble around without the crutches

God bless you, hope you recover soon and have a optimistic view to face the thing that you encounter, so I believe you are in a different mood.

Even some of the players were the same. The knee specialist that operated on me was the same guy that operated on me last time (1999, I think). I have my post-op check-up on the 27th. I am optimistically reserving a flight up to DC that same afternoon.

Today, I took my first steps without crutches. I couldn't believe it. They have made progress with this procedure, for sure, and I am doing the exercises they gave me to do.

I had sought out the same surgeon who operated on me 16 years ago, and he's still doing it. I have to assume significant progress in the technique has been made. If you had told me 2 days ago I would be hobbling around without the crutches less than 3 days after the operation, I would have lost a lot of money making a bet with you.

10 days can feel like an eternity when your body is not up to par. But you can do this! I am not sure how good I would be at the crutches thing either. Hang in there!

I have done the crutches thing before. But they said the sooner I'm off them, the faster I'd heal, so I'm trying to do just that. If I'm hobbling around the house like Peg-Leg the Pirate, so be it. At least I'm doing something. I CAN do this, and I will.

Thanks for the words of encouragement--I promise to live up to them!

Knees are really important and we don't even realize it until they aren't working the way they should. Attitude is everything, you will be better in no time I am sure.

Combine the two, and I should be walking outta here by next week

I tore a hamstring and fracture my tibial plateau when I was in grad school. 6 weeks on crutches. What a pain in the ass that was!

But I think it must have been over 30 years ago. That would have driven me stark raving bonkers.

Had the 50,000 mile check up, you know, the low budget SciFi movie focused on Uranus?

Anyway, I hit the wrong lotto and had complications leading to the ER and a BP of 86 over 53. I wasn't light headed at all and didn't have any pain, but it was annoying to have tubes and electrodes stuck in and on me for a couple days.

Take it easy and get better soon,

Although, come to think of it, when I arrived, they took my BP and registered 160 over 85. I told them their device was off, which they said was impossible. Except that I had not eaten anything and it was 5 AM, and my usual is 115 over 70. They tried it again and came up with 152 over 78. I said they needed a new machine. They disagreed, of course, but 5 hours later when they released me, they measured it again with another machine, and it was 120 over 80--more like what I'd expect, even after an operation.

I think you got the worse adventure of the two of us, as I was freed of all tubes and wires within hours. In the USA, it seems, they bend over backwards to get you out of a hospital. In Germany, they tend to keep you until they are sure you are in shape to be released. Of course, it costs 2/3 less over there, too. I can't wait to see the bill. A quick $20,000 for the trouble, no doubt.

Four liters of IV saline in the ER didn't bring my BP up. My pulse was going to 130 when I was walking to the bathroom (which they were surprised that I could do without tipping over). My hemoglobin went down, not horrible, but they decided to give me a transfusion and plant me in the ICU for a day to monitor me.

Bright side is I'm fine now two days later. I got the IV ports out this morning and they let me go home. Taking it easy today and back to work on Monday.

I'm anxious to see what it costs me to treat a complication from colonoscopy. Got the results back and they want me to do another in a year...

Good luck in healing up your knee.

Namely, a heart attack!

They had told me to go off any blood thinners I might be taking ten days before the procedure, so I stopped my daily baby aspirin ten days before. In 2004, I had had two heart stents put in, as I had severe artery blockage. What I didn't know is that when people with my blood count stop taking blood thinners, it takes about ten days for an artery to clog up again. Sure enough, half an hour after I left from the colonoscopy, BAM! Back to the emergency room for my first genuine bona fide US certified Grade A heart attack. One of the stents was completely blocked. An angioplasty blew the crap out again, and I was warned never EVER to go off the baby aspirin again. This time, for the knee surgery, I had the surgeon contact my GP, and luckily they knew each other, and it was decided I would go off the baby aspirin ONE day before the arthroscopy. No problems at all--yet, anyway!

and courage that one day I'll jump in and have the surgery I've been putting off for years.

I too HATE being an invalid even for a few days. I've torn stitches from too much movement after abdominal surgery! One thing is that my hubs isn't too adept at doing things around the house (he's too old school and I'm picky, I suppose), so I hop out of bed to do what's necessary. I so dread having to ask and rely on him.

Seems as if so many are having knee problems lately -- my brother and folks here. I just posted this evening in another thread about mine...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=831320


Thanks for this thread!

So, it is only getting worse if you don't address it. Better sooner than later, and although during the first 48 hours you think you'll never walk again, after the next 48, you'll be wondering what all the fuss was about. Do the exercises they tell you to do--that is really important. They are not strenuous and they don't take long, but they help get the circulation going, and prevent clotting, which is vital. Be up and about as soon as you can--WITHOUT overdoing it, and you should be fine.

Now I am convinced! I will have a replacement!

When the surgeon want to just remove the cartilege, I said "hell no" to the bone on bone outcome. Bad idea, I thought. He didn't offer me a straight up replacement and after talking to two of his post-operative patients in his waiting room, I knew I was in the wrong office. I thought I'd go doc shopping if and when the pain became too severe for me to bear.

In the meantime, I've overused my left leg to compensate and all the while doing leg lifts to strengthen the rt leg ligaments, thinking that would help take pressure off the bones. It seemed to have helped.

But 9 weeks ago, damn it, I tripped giving my big Lab pup a bath and pulled the hell out the ligs surrounding my left knee. Am just now able to ease off pain meds. The good news there is that my GP and I both are sure that problem is on its way healing.

There are other big physical and nonphysical issues I'm having to deal with. Once some of that is resolved, I'm seeking the best orthopedic surgeon I can find.


Thanks again!

From what I hear, you will NOT be quickly out and about after a full replacement. THAT is a different matter entirely. You will have a much longer period of immobility and need physical therapy for a while after the OP. A replacement is a completely different animal from an arthroscopy.

But DO make sure you get very competent care either way. Having an orthopedist who knows what he is doing makes all the difference in the world. My guy has been taking care of the Dallas Cowboys for 15 years, and those guys smash their knees to bits all the time.

The guy told me my tear was bad enough that he wanted to remove the whole meniscus. When it happened, I went to the floor and had to used crutches for quite awhile. Then the pain let up. My pt is that it wasn't a small tear.

I'll be revaluated and probably have to have another MRI. Being claustrophobic, I hate those things too.

I should just visit my son in Bmore and let one of the guys at Hopkins do an evaluation.

That's a good place in general, so you're probably in good hands there.

to rehab.

I have two friends who have done replacements in the last year--and were very dedicated to their PT, exercises, etc.
afterwards--and still took months and months before they felt 'normal'.

The key is finding a really good orthopedic surgeon who does knee replacements. Talk to physical therapists, ortho nurses,
sports medicine docs/PT's to get names. You want someone who does LOTS and LOTS of procedures (more the better)
and if you have to wait several months to get on their surgery schedule it's a good sign that the surgeon has good results
because of the demand for his (her) services.

When I had my hip replaced I did not go to UNC or Duke or even a doc in Raleigh in 2007. Nobody near by was doing the anterior approach.
Found a doc in Charlotte who had been doing it for several years (he did a fellowship in Canada to learn the procedure that
was developed by an ortho doc in California) and had to wait 4 months to get on his surgery schedule. His RN told me that
the real reason for having to wait so long was the demand for him to do knees...so, if/when I have to do a knee I'm going
back to him.

Ortho docs will try to sell you on doing whatever procedure they know how to do. You want to be sure--if there are variations on a procedure
(like there are for hip replacement) that you find a doc who does the particular procedure you need and that the doc does LOTS of them.
It will make all the difference in your rehab to be at the best starting point you can.

Take care! Do those exercises! Do your walking! Hope you are able to return to Germany as soon as you can.



Are you working on another novel? Using this time to write?

Full of fun characters like the last one, but very different, all the same. But it's very slow going, this time. Last time, Bush and Cheney had conveniently left us with a depression, and the world slowed down long enough for me to complete the first one. Obama has done me no such favor, although he did do the world a favor. he result is that I have not had anywhere near as much time to complete the next one.

It's really hard for her to get around, but she keeps at it. Her mind is still sharp, but her body is making things difficult for her.

Not a choice that's pleasant to contemplate!