I have joined the ranks of thousands, perhaps even millions, who have decided to go bionic. My old body parts are slowly wearing out and unlike being able to replace my brain I am able to replace my knees. Knee #1 was removed 2 weeks ago today and I have been suffering through the last 2 weeks trying to convince myself this was worth it. As with most people I have spoken to who have gone this bionic route, I probably waited too long to do this. I was told 10 years ago that my knees were,
"Bone on Bone", meaning there was no,longer anything in there acting as a cushion. But I decided to try shots and PT and weight loss in order to avoide the inevitable. Actually I was waiting for modern science to perfect a painless knee replacement but since that wasn't happening I finally bit the bullet and went for the surgery. I have been poling people I would meet as to their experiences with knee replacement and everyone of them said, and I quote, " Oh, it's not bad at all !". LIARS !!!!!!!!
Maybe it is just that I am twenty years older than when I was last in a hospital for surgery but this is NOT a walk in the park. In fact, it's not a walk anywhere. I am totally done with this hobbling around on a walker throwing my back into all sorts of spasms and feeling nauseous all the time thanks to the pain killers. And all I can think of is that I am going to do this again with my left knee? Not if I can help It!
I must confess I did have an awesome hospital stay and my doctor is amazing and the first day after surgery I had NO PAIN what so ever. Do you know they can give you a shot directly into a nerve to deaden the nerve for 24 hours? I swear to you I woke up in recovery with NO pain for the first day and night. Of course once the 24 hours were passed my nerves all got together and had a pain fest like I couldn't believe. They were all screaming I unison, " Hey there Cath! Remember us!" Thank God for a fabulous team of nurses in St. Mary's hospital in West Palm Beach who were right on top of my pain meds and anti nausea meds and all the 27 other meds I was taking to get me through my 3 day stay. Not that things were much better after arriving home but here too I have had a fantastic team of people literally "walking" me through these past 2 weeks. Every day does get a little better, except when I am stupid, (stupid being my middle name) and over do the activity or miss a scheduled pain med. Tomorrow I get the three zillion staples taken out of the incision and I am hoping that will give me a little more range of motion, not having these metal spikes stuck in my leg.
It's been an adventure for sure. I'd write more but I have to start taking the 27 morning pills that I ingest every day. NO Joke. 27 Pills !! Three are my normal morning meds, three are prescriptions from the surgeon and the rest are ALL vitamins of different sorts. By the time I take all the pills I am too full to eat anything but most of the pills say, "TAKE WITH FOOD". So I shove something into my face just to sop up all the pills in my stomach and then need a nap!
It's been an interesting 2 weeks so far and I am wondering if I will ever be walking pain free, limp free, achey free again. But then when I think about it I haven't been any of those for about 10 years so I guess I really am making progress.
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