Wednesday, August 28, 2013

My Knee replacement, One week in.

Say hello to my new left knee . It's been a week to the day since I had the operation and I can safely say that everything has gone very very well. Nothing's perfect and there have been some bumps in the road but one week out I am doing better than expected and have high high hopes for the coming weeks and months.
The operation took 3.5 hours, 1.5 more than usual as my old knee, as my Dr said, "was just not normal". It was so deformed that had to use other procedures to place the cutting devices and make the implant fit. One part of the medial tibial component ended up being 3 mm shorter than the other as that was how much bone needed to be removed and the tibial component shimmed up!
You even see it on the X ray above- looking straight ahead the left side with bone is lower than the right side( with the fibula). Either way, they made it work.

With that much cutting and sawing Mark is a very sore puppy! Most of the pain the next days was from that.The knee itself, being cobalt and polyethylene are perfect with no nerve endings.:)
Bending or holding it was very painful, even with the super drugs I got.
Didn't get to walk the first day as blood pressure was too high for some reason but settled down the next and I did my first walk and 'pseudo' stair negotiations.


I was very happy that I could put full weight on my left leg and that I could actually stand up straight on it for the first time in forever. This all however, will take some getting used to.


I can get into a swing stance and have done some air swings that feel perfectly safe! But the real priority will be getting knee range of motion into the 110+ area. That HAS to come first, before everything else.
(-5 degrees extension on the goniometer in the hospital, day two the day before the op=  -15 deg)

I got a nice curvy scar to balance out my other one
Saw Dr Blatz yesterday and he was very pleased with everything, how the knee looked, how I looked and moved  and my health. He said it was fine if I handled my own physical therapy. I did one session yesterday with the PT that was prescribed and it was less than a joke. I did more productive work in the morning before I went there than at the session. And since I have to pay for it out of pocket I don't want to waste my money or time.

Most of my updates about this will be via my facebook page until my energy turns around. I'm pretty tired and my 'perfect' daily routine is completely blown to bits so it will take some time to ge things sorted out.

I am napping alot and nights are very long and tough. Mornings, however are great :)

My facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/mark.reifkind

If you are not a FB friend and want to follow this just send a friend request.

This is what I've been training for all this time. This is strength for real life.This is when it really counts. THIS is SISU.

datsit for now!

27 comments:

Diana said...

Mark,
That new knee looks great! It is truly amazing how surgery can take it's toll on a person. I felt pretty good one week after mine, however, got tired super, super fast! It all just takes time-then before you know it...life picks up!
You'll be in much better form doing your own PT-that profession is pretty much a joke, that's JMO!
Continued good healing-enjoy the time!

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