Knee Recovery - Week 2

Well hello!   

Boy oh boy what a week!  By the end of the week I was feeling the major work my physical therapist is giving me.  Lots of focus on the knee itself, but also working in small part on other parts of my body that are compensating for the left knee and keeping them on the up and up.

As for working from home.  I have to make sure that I am up and moving around about every hour.  Sometimes things got busy and I would forget an hour had passed, but I try to get mobile here and there.   Plus sitting on the chair for too long, my body would let me know.

Me and the pups too Saturday for a serious chill day.  We binged the show Elsbeth - First Season, which I have been wanting to get into and I love it.  Will binge the other seasons, too.  I also checked out Cupertino, NCIS New York and Eternally Yours.  Looking forward to the rest of the season.

Also, for the first time in a few weeks, I did some food prep again.  My knee and balance felt good enough to do that and it felt good doing it.  Felt worn out afterwards.

So on to Week 3 and am expecting some new exercises to do in sessions.  It should be good.

Later.....

Total Knee - One Week Down

I apologize as I wanted to post this days ago.   Was having issues with the editor.   

My first full week was quite the adjustment.   There was some pain to deal with, but it was more so the pressure from swelling that was the challenge.   

I met with In-Home therapy on Monday 9/28 with the intake and it went pretty smoothly.  The therapist/representative was very nice to work with.   Unfortunately, he would not be my actual therapist.  

The rest of the week went pretty okay.   My first full week working remote via RA and it was pretty steady.   Had some standard remote tickets and some random calls from my regular users needing assistance.  I’ll admit it is an adjustment working solely remote and not be able to go to the user in-person to troubleshoot the issue, but so far all issues were able to be resolved remotely.  I made an arrangement with one of my neighbors to handle taking my garbage and recycling bins to the curb on day before pickup and bring back the next day.  Great young couple.

I had my first full therapy session on Friday and I was told beforehand to be ready as I was going to be worked.  The therapist was cool.  She was a black woman maybe 10 or so years younger than I and I’ll admit I was happy she was black because I don’t have many providers of my race.  Not to say that the other providers were not good, but it is something about having one you can connect with not only professionally, but culturally.  We talked while we worked and she was great in letting me know how to do the exercises correctly.  You can tell she really cares for her clients.   

I had to keep the pups locked up in the office because I know they would get in the way.  Well at least two of them would.  They were quiet for the most part was of course were ecstatic when I let them out after the session. 

Had my second session today and on man!   I didn’t show it to her, but she worked me and as I am typing this, I am feel it.  My legs were worked, but I feel like most of my body was involved.  I am thankful though because this shows me what I’m capable of now and how she feels how on pace I am, which looks pretty good.  I’m now going to take it easy tonight and tomorrow focusing on work and some exercises.  She returns on Thursday.  Hope I’ll be ready.  

Want to thank you all for your best wishes. I’ll try to post as much as I can.  

Later….

New Journey - Knee

Well Well.  It has been a while.

I had notice at times I text long messages to many people and said I should place this in a blog or something.   Then I decided I will do that especially for adventures that I am going through now.

So I got a Total Knee Replacement on Friday, September 25.  This was something that was long over through.  I had lost my ACL back in 1996 while in Taekwondo.  I continue to practice the art, but the knee slowly continued its deuteriation (not sure if that's the correct spelling).  

In 2007 and 2010 I had to have surgery to remove meniscus tears and after the second surgery, the Ortho surgeon diagnosed me with osteoarthritis in both my left knee and left ankle and told me that a knee surgery was in my future.  Throughout time when flair up happen, I would be sent to physical therapy to perform exercises to strengthen the area and bring the pain/irritation down.  This time the flair up happened and this time it consisted longer than usual.  I was referred to Ortho and after an X-Ray we found I was bone on bone and the arthritis was severe.  Time for the replacement.

One advantage they said I have is that with me being as young as I am (53), I should recover very well.  So I had the surgery on Friday 9/25.  Lots of preparation moving up to it.  Also, suffered a postponement as the surgery originally was suppose to be on 8/17, but they found something in pre-testing causing me to go to cardiology.  Had an echo and the cardiologist said nothing was found.  So I was cleared and the surgery was moved to 9/25.

I got the house as ready as I can and arranged for my 4 pups to be watched over while I was away.   Managed to gained a ride from a very good friend to and from the hospital as you all know you should not drive and not do ride-share from the hospital.  

The surgery went well.  Actually faster than I expected.  About an 90 minutes.  Mind blown.  Either way, it went very well.  I wish I could have met with the surgeon and anesthesiologist afterwards to go to the details, but they just don't do that as I'm sure they are extremely busy throughout the days,  Didn't even see the assistants or PAs either.  Oh well.

I woke up in crazy pain and the staff scattered hard to help get my pain down.  I don't know if I cried, but I know I was cringing and here and there speaking about the pain, but worked to stay as calm as possible.  They did work quickly and got me pretty stable.  I was later moved to my room and after several hours I decided to spend the night at the hospital as going home alone would not be advisable.

Got my ride back home with one friend that is watching my oldest dog, Violet (14 years old).  She brough her with and I was very happy to see her.  Got home and they stayed for a while.  During that time my friend worked on some other things to make my mobility even easier around the house.  Very grateful.  They left hours later and I was in the bed shortly after that with the good dugs in my system.  

It felt weird going to bed without my pups, but it was easier without my youngest, Ryker (4 yrs) bouncing around.  Violet will be back later today (Sunday 9/27) and the boys (Kylo, Wyatt and Ryker) will be back on Monday (9/28).  I slept well though and the need to get up once overnight.  

Every hour, I have exercises to do and have to get up and walk around to help keep the blood clots at bay.  Back to Monday, I was fortunate to be allowed to work from home, through proper channels,  while recovering so no worries about loosing pay.  Very thankful.  We will see how that works out, too.  I'm sure my pups will love it.

Well that is it for now.  Will journal back here maybe ever couple of days or week as I progress in this new journey.

Later...