September 22, 2013
How's your knee? I get that a lot in the last few weeks. Friends and relatives (and work) are texting, e-mailing and calling to find out how my Total Knee Replacement surgery went. Thought I'd give you the full unvarnished story behind my ultra new, porous titanium steel replacement knee. Porous is the new style that allows bone to grow into it and glue is no longer used. Lasts a lifetime, or so they say.
Years ago, it was 3rd or 4th grade, I used to jump out of playground swings. You know, where you pump as high as you can and then 'jump' at the top of the forward arc. Was a lot of fun until I came down on my right knee locked. Ouch! I crawled home 3 blocks from Clinton Elemtary School that day. Ouch, again. That was the initial thing that started all this....well, that and 43 years of copier repair. "Copier Knees" as we in the trade call it. Those 43 years of crawling, bending, kneeling, etc made it worse and eventually very arthritic. For the last 20 years or so, it's gotten worse, locking up, buckling, swelling, paining. Last year I had it 'cleaned' out as the surgeon explained. the following x-ray was taken just before that 'cleaning out the gravel' surgery about 18 months ago.
You can see some of the debris in the joint. That's the stuff he cleaned out last year. Should have stayed 'clean' for three or more years. Not! It came back with a vengeance plus more this year.
Sister Pat and Cuz'n Kent were here during the 4th of July week. Charlene and I took that week off as a vacation and we were all having fun, doing things, playing around. We went to a restaurant on Tuesday evening and later that evening, in the middle of the night I got a bad case of shivers. So bad that my entire body was racked with shivers, slight fever, and a quick case of sick-to-my-stomach. Took a hot shower to warm up and went back to bed. Woke up the next morning with terrific pain in my right knee and in my lower back where I had back surgery 3 years earlier. The knee swelled to about twice normal size and my back pain was almost as bad as it was before that surgery. Went to Family doctor who gave me some pain pills, ordered blood tests. Went back to see Family doctor on Monday and he immediately sent me to the ER. After 10 hours in the ER, I was admitted to the hospital. I spent 5 days there, had a million tests, got sloshed with bags and bags of antibiotics. They never did figure out what was wrong or what caused it. Never was any infection. After I ws release from the hospital, I saw Doctor Knee Surgeon. He said that whatever it was had come and gone, maybe viral but my knee didn't have an infection, just inflammation. He showed me how my knee joint had gone bad beyond repair. He had me sit in a chair, pulled up both pant legs and straightened my legs. My left leg was straight, the right one was bent out about 10 degrees from the knee to the foot. Knee joint beyond repair he said. He gave my knee a shot of steroids/pain killer and it was much better the next day. Doctor Knee set up an MRI (had gobs of x-rays from my stay at the hospital. so no more of those needed. The MRI showed what we both knew-- time for a total knee replacement....bionic man in the making. I took a few weeks to think about it and my knee just got worse so I opted for the surgery.
Total Knee Replacement recovery is slow and painful. Lots of physical therapy stuff that brings tears if you do it right. Much worse than hip replacement. There's a small window of opportunity to get the surgery to heal correctly and permanently. If you don't do the therapy correctly and promptly, it heals wrong for the rest of your life. Yuch! Everyone I talked to said it was worth the pain and suffering of therapy to walk normal again - something that would take 4-6 months. Worse yet, I had been walking 'funny' with my leg bent and on my tippy-toes to offset the pain and walking bent over, making my back worse. Both of which made the recovery worse. Ahh! Superman Syndrome. All us guys suffer from that.
Friday, Surgery Day.
Charlene and I arrived at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning, filled out the forms and played with the pencils on the Group W bench. I changed into 'Naked Man' hospital gown and they wheeled me off at 7:30 for surgery. I really don't remember mcuh of that, uh, actually none of the surgery, thank God. Charlene had told me how it goes in this operation and the less I knew, the better. I awoke as I arrived at my room. It was a single room, no screaming, moaning bed buddy. Charlene had arranged it all during my surgery. Great room, great view of the hill side with Two Trees on top. Beautiful at night, too with all the hill side city lights. From what all the nurses and doctors said, it was the best room on the floor. Here's a view out my giant window:
Three days prior to surgery, I put myself on a clear liquid diet (juice and jello) so I wouldn't need a bed pan for a few days after surgery. Works great. Lunch was being served as I arrived in the room and being starved for 3 days, I chowed down. For the most part, the food is great. Here's a couple of photos of what they served me:
The evening of the surgery, they had me walk, assisted of course, up to the nursing station and back. That kind of astounded me. I mean, they cut my leg in half, fixed it back together, sew it up and have me walking 12 hours later. One very cool invention that makes this possible in a Femoral Nerve Block gizmo. It's a balloon filled with pain killer and it's sealed inside a plastic capsule. It's about the size of a pack of cigarettes. The thing is a tiny IV that has a tube inserted in my groin, fed down to my knee so the knee is totally numb for a few days. Makes this operation possible for the patient. Regular narcotic pain pills don't touch this kind of pain.
Here's a pic of me in my naked man hospital gown.
The blue and gray wrap thing on my left leg is a massager to keep blood clots from forming in my good leg. Twice a day, the physical torture, uh, physical therapy lady would come and give me exercises to do, walk me around the hospital floor and cheer me on. They also hooked my operated leg to a mechanical 'exerciser' machine that slowly straightens/bends my leg. I had control of the amount of 'bend'. If you are sitting in a chair, leg straight down to the floor, that's a 90 degree bend. I would be hooked up on this for 2 hours, twice a day, before the PT lady would come. Think I started with a 40 degree bend the first day and eventually worked my way up to a 100 degree bend. I learned to take two pain killers before the machine and therapy. It was the beginning of the weeks of PT I will endure.
I had brought a couple of Jack Reacher novels to read and Charlene had brought me a couple of joke books to read. Here's a picture of one of them:
Don't you just love these things - full of so much bullshit that they are actually funny.
On the 4th day at Club Hospital, I was walking with a walker around the hospital unaided. On the 5th day, I was released to go home. The surgeon had arranged for a 'stretching machine" (actually called a CPM) to be delivered to our house for 3 weeks. Also had home PT set up for 3 days a week for the next 2 weeks. Oh, joy....
When all this stuff started in July, Charlene got me several walkers from the thrift stores. The first one is one of those two wheels on the front, rubber balls on the back. But she customized it with 'skids' on the rear, making it easier to move. Even got a cup holder. Here's a picture of "Tennessee", my walker:
She also got me the 4 wheeled kind, complete with hand brakes. Here's a picture of "Clint" my 4 wheeled walker complete with seat. Wow!
About the only problem I had after getting home was that I almost killed myself on pain meds. First day, I'm up early, take my two pain meds and get on the CPM thing. Within an hour, my blood pressure went disastrously low. Seems the pain meds in the hospital were a 5 mg. dose and my home stuff was 10 mg. Ooops! By afternoon, we had figured it out and I was better then. I've got an electronic blood pressure gizmo that straps on my wrist and for the next two days, I checked it around the clock.
If you can stand it, here's a pic of my knee after I got home:
I went to see Doctor Knee on Thursday and he gave me the following grades:
Healing A+
Flex (bending) A-
Straight out leg lock B+ (I'm only at 178 degrees instead of 180).
I'm set up for out patient PT 3 times a week and see Doctor Knee in 6 weeks. I do my CPM three times a day for 2 hours each, followed by my tear dripping PT. Me and Clint go for slow walks to the Buddist Temple and back as well. Slow but sure. I mean even the Mummy is faster than me.
Doctor Knee gave me a x-ray of my new knee:
There you go, you are up to date on "What became of the knee"
