Hi Meewee, I never had the machine that flows continuous ice around your knee. In fact there were about 6 bilaterals in rehab at the same time, and none of us had it. Now, other than after my long walk today, the only time I put ice on is at the end of my outpatient rehab session. They ice me down before I leave
We didn't actually have a good hard chair with arms, but discovered that the chairs on our porch were perfect, and we moved one into each of two rooms. They were comfortable and I could get out relatively easily. By the way, i was on decent narcotics at the time and would be a zombie in the chair. I would tell myself I'm getting up to take a little walk at the next commercial, but it could be 4 hours before I'd move. It wasn't smart
Shoes: at the beginning rehab will put you in non skid socks. But once you're walking, you need sneakers with laces. You won't be able to put them on yourself, but you need a good non skid shoe that won't move when you place your foot down.
By the way, at week 9 the outpatient rehab folks decided i was ready to try the recumbent bike, and I was looking forward to it because i figured sitting for 10 minutes should be pretty pain free. Wrong Wrong. Even with the seat pretty high (the height was 11) i could not get the left knee to rotate when it was at the top and needed to switch from going up to down. It was a killer on the left side, but the right knee had no problem at all. A week later I was doing it at a much lower seat height (8) and both knees spun without much discomfort.
Something i found odd and still find odd is that both knees have not progressed at the same rate. In talking to the surgeon and other BTKR victims they all experienced that. And there's no predicatability which knee will be worse. For me my left was worse presurgery, and it still worse. But others say their former worse knee is now the good one. The surgeons explanation is that the janitor did the left and he did the right one
But even the bad side is doing fine, and if I only had one knee done I'd think it was just fine
FYI, i was able to drive at 6 weeks. FREEDOM, once you wrestle you legs into the car :(
joe