Bilateral TKR Alone in the hospital

KL Rio Verde

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Hi Everyone!
My BTKR is Thursday. So to Covid 19 restrictions, my husband can only drop me off on Thursday and pick me up in a couple days. I’m pretty comfortable in the hospital setting, not terribly anxious about the surgery, but still worried about how I will react to the isolation of being in the hospital alone (without family support) I know we’ll do FaceTime, but.....
Is anyone else in this situation?
Not sure if this belongs here, or in the Pre-op section.
 
Hi @KL Rio Verde I've moved you post to the Knee Surgery Pre-Op Area.

I'm sure you will be all right in the hospital. The staff will take good care of you and you probably won't feel like seeing visitors for a while anyway.
 
Don't tell my wife, but for the first few days after the op, I just want to have peace and quiet, snoozing time, except for the cups of tea and food being brought of course.
With my tkrs, the physios turned up almost as soon as I was awake insisting I get out of bed, go for a walk and go up and down stairs. Going off to the toilet, wasn't a quick trip either.
I had to accept the frequent visits from the lovely nurses checking if everything was OK.
I actually had little time or energy for visitors.
Being alone wasn't an issue for me, being left alone was the real issue.
I wanted to watch cricket on the TV, but couldn't stay awake.
 
I think knowing that we must be dropped off at the door and then we won’t be able to see our support people until we are discharged, puts us in a nervous frame of mind. Personally, I don’t like to venture into any “new territory” without someone next to me!

So, while I did have the comfort of my husband’s presence most of my surgery day, I did send him home by dinner time, as he was just sitting there, and I was very comfortable with the nursing and PT staff I had. And I was fine without him. But, like I said, I had confidence because he’d been there most of the day.

So, even though you will be going in “alone” I do hope you have a very compassionate staff that you will become comfortable with. And, you’ll always have us, to post to.:console2:
 
I realise a lot depends on what surgery time you are allocated.
My wife dropped me off at 6.30am, and I was immediately collected by a nurse. My wife couldn't come to the ward with me. This was months before the corona virus had appeared, so it was standard procedure.
The surgery preps started almost immediately, and there was no time to feel lonely before I set off for surgery, about 10.30, then back for lunch.
Of course if I had turned up at 6.30 for a 4pm surgery, that might have been different.
 
Thank you all for responding. Your experiences help me realize I’ll be fine. <3
 
While surgery is hard, going it without close family there could be disconcerting. But, I think you'll do fine.

Personally, having no visitors would not have been too bad for me as after surgery there are so many staff personnel in and out constantly, that I really only wanted to rest in between. It's hard to get up the energy to visit with family, and you can feel like you need to keep up a conversation while they're there, instead of just sleeping, which is what you usually want to do for a time. You'll have plenty of time for visiting and chatting after going home, so use those inpatient 'alone' days to take care of your needs.
 

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