Varied Topics

There's not a lot to say about today, so I'll summarize quickly and then address a couple of general TKR surgery/recovery issues that maybe I should have addressed previously. And, just as a preliminary "warning," I'll mention that I plan to continue this blog until I finish therapy and then I'll let it die a dignified death. My main purpose was to have a record of the surgery and recovery, and presumably the formal recovery period will more or less end when therapy concludes. I may occasionally update it after a doctor visit or at the 3-month or 6-month anniversary, but mostly I'll just keep up the daily posting until the end of August which is when therapy ends.

Today was fairly non-eventful. Stan and I kept our granddaughters for several hours today while their parents were at work. Stan took them swimming in the morning, but for the rest of the day, we just all hung out here. I fixed lunch for everyone (yes, I'm sort of "cooking" now), and then we all did different things around the house and in the backyard, so it was a day when we weren't particularly busy, but we really couldn't do anything else. I did my exercises all by myself both this morning and this afternoon. Usually Stan supervises and keeps pushing me to do one more-just one more-okay, maybe two more! When I did them myself, I didn't do any extra, but I did do them. The one where I lie on my stomach and bend my leg backwards is the same one that causes me so much pain at therapy sessions, and it's none too comfy at home, but at least there's no hand pushing my leg ever backwards. Still, it was uncomfortable and I was ready to ice down my knee when it was over. And by the way, I'm not taking any Percocet at all except for two tablets right before I go to physical therapy. I take a couple of ibuprofen after breakfast, and that generally gets me through the day.

Now to address a couple of topics that I perhaps should have mentioned previously. When I left the hospital, I was fully expecting to be sent home with one of those "continuous passive motion" machines. Everyone I had read about and the one person here in my area that I knew who had TKR surgery had one of the CPM machines. My doctor did not prescribe one for me and I was somewhat perplexed because it really seemed to be standard practice. When I questioned the hospital therapist, I was told that I already had a range of motion of 90 degrees which meant that I didn't need the CPM machine. I also thought everyone was supposed to use a knee immobilizer for a couple of weeks, but again, when I questioned the therapist, she said that I could already extend my knee almost completely straight, so I didn't need an immobilizer. I'm sure my doctor and therapist knew best, and I guess my progress has confirmed their recommendation, but I really didn't get a full explanation of why these wouldn't help me to be even better than I might have been. All I was told was: work hard at physical therapy!!! And when you've worked hard at physical therapy, work even harder. For the most part, that's what I've done. Yeah, I'm human and I've sloughed off a day here and there, but I've tried to do what I was instructed to do, and so far it seems to be working--but it still hurts!