DAY SIX: RECOVERY CONTINUES

APOLOGIES that I am not able so far to present a picture of my 11 cm or so incision. You will have to wait for the next post for that.

So...here I am on the morning of Day Six (Saturday); and glad to report that I am doing quite well. On Day three, you may well recall, I was still using crutches. Feeling and control was returning to the upper leg. By the end of the day I was making only limited use of the crutches and thinking that I might well do without them. However, I had no walking stick and did not feel sufficiently venturesome to just do without them.

On Thursday, I found that I was confident to do away with the crutches some of the time, using only on and, from time to time, just walking short distances without them. Still on pain reducing tablets of various sorts. However, Wednesday night was the last time I used Oxycontin and I ceased Oxycodone on this day. This was also the day Doug, the the Physical Therapist, visited. He gave me a stick, three sets of exercises to do five times each day, and coaching on recovering a normal walk and going up and down stairs. He promises to be quite the tyrant so I am working to meet his criteria in time for his next visit on Monday. This was also the day that I ventured out to pick up the mail from the cluster of mail boxes across the road (slow progress and several snails rudely hooted at me as they passed me by).

Yesterday, Friday, was consumed with rituals to do with physical therapy, ice treatment, walking about and discovering how truly boring Friday TV can be. The longing to get some work done began but frustration at not being able to just sit for more than 10 minutes also set in. I find I can now redo my pressure bandage. Last night, I slept without it. Also, just on Tylenol every six hours now.

Now that I can view the knee, what do I notice? Quite a bit of bruising from the tourniquet application above the knee (the operative area has to be virtually blood free), as well as some bruising of the shin where the alignment tool was fixed. Swelling is greatly reduced but quite present still.

I thought I might be worried about putting weight on the leg (despite that I know the glue used sets in 5 minutes or so). In fact, the procedure results in the knee being considerably restricted in motion due to swelling and associated pain. This is mainly due to the incision itself (lots of stitches) and the trauma to the soft tissues being pulled and pushed about. The nerve block obscured this over the first two days and the magic 'Oxy's' take over after that.

The main problem is to minimize and then reduce the swelling and the ice treatment (a cuff placed around the knee that has ice water pumped through it from a Kooler-like tank)i s really good for this and I am sure the pressure bandage helps a lot too.

It helps to remind oneself that the pain originates from the soft tissue and not from the bone and that the various bits of the prosthesis are securely set in the joint. With a partial knee replacement, no muscles are cut and all the natural ligaments holding the joint together are left in place. The actual experience of pain is far less than I had anticipated and it really is very encouraging to discover that one can move about so soon after the procedure.

As there is a good chance that some of you will have this procedure, or one like it, over the next ten to 20 years, I hope that my little saga will be helpful if you recall it when considering what best to do. It is helpful to a lot of research beforehand.

In the meantime, this saga continues...watch this space!