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TKR Acceptance and Understanding<

Cancelled my PT today. They agreed when I called. Ice. Ice. Ice. It’s sore. What a dummy I am. Ugh.:bawl:
 
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I’m very glad you cancelled PT and that they agreed!
 
Yah @Jockette my knee isn’t very happy right now. It’s aggravated like me. I think I may have set myself back on my recovery road. I’m soooo frustrated with myself. My right knee little sore too because it too was jarred, and my lower back on one side. Learning lesson?!! Yupper!!!
 
Cancelling PT was the right call. Your knee has enough to deal with right now. Ice, ice, and more ice!
 
Yes, I’m glad PT was canceled. Now keep it up and iced as much as possible. Boring, but necessary.
 
I’m very down about my fall yesterday. It makes me feel like my knees and legs will never be strong again. Even my RTKR doesn’t feel normal yet. I don’t walk the same, I was used to walking without having to think about it. Now every step I take is calculated and I seriously have to look at the ground when I walk. I’m also slower than I used to be. I’m in an emotional slump at the moment and sitting here is not helping. I understand why I needed these TKRs but I won’t accept this is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life. Always looking down, unsure of my steps, slow walking, discomfort and stiffness, lack of leg strength, feeling like an old lady ..... Unacceptable for me.
 
Hi Needhope
You are describing my feelings exactly. Sorry to hear about your fall. It must be very overwhelming. Has there been any benefits to doing the surgeries? Sometime I find it helps to focus on the gains instead of the perceived losses and I also try not to project too much into the future. No one knows what the future holds and the anticipation of something is always worse than the reality. Sending you hugs.
 
Needhope said:
Always looking down, unsure of my steps, slow walking, discomfort and stiffness, lack of leg strength, feeling like an old lady
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I was just like this until my knee healed more. I’m still like that on uneven surfaces. It’s the way it is.

Where you are now is not where you will end up. Healing takes a looooong time!

And, you didn’t fall because your knee was unstable, you:
Needhope said:
I twisted my left knee while coming down stairs trying to change my bedsheets, slipped on a dragging part of comforter,
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That could happen to anyone with perfect knees who’d never had surgery.

Carrying bulky things like that this early in recovery is very likely to have this outcome. And you are VERY early in recovery, whether you like it or not. Your other knee is not done healing yet either and a lot is being asked of it considering it’s not done healing yet either.
 
Needhope said:
I understand why I needed these TKRs but I won’t accept this is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life. Always looking down, unsure of my steps, slow walking, discomfort and stiffness, lack of leg strength, feeling like an old lady ..... Unacceptable for me.
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Why would you think this is what your knee(s) will be like for the rest of your life? They're healing. They're getting better all the time. Remember back to the first days after surgery? Chances are you could barely walk across a room. They aren't like that now. And they won't be like this, the way they are today, six weeks from now. Or six months. Or a year.

One thing this recovery requires -- and people don't talk about nearly enough -- is a long term perspective. This is a LONG recovery. Here was what my recovery was like, in a nutshell:

Week 1: I could walk to the bathroom but it hurt like :censored:. I needed a walker. NEEDED it.
Week 2: It hurt a little less to walk to the bathroom or anywhere else. I could walk 500 feet pretty well though.
Week 3: I could walk half a block. I used a cane in the house. I looked at the ground.
Week 4: I could walk up and down my block! Yay! I could make short trips, like to the bathroom, without my walker, using a cane.
Week 6: Walking up and down the block with a cane. Looking at the ground lest I stumble or anything.
Week 8: I could walk in the mall! Without a cane! I could walk around the block. I was SLOW but I could do it.
Week 12: I could walk a few blocks, about a mile, without using cane. I carried it with me, though. Slow but steady. Starting to not look at the ground so much.
Week 16: Walked 30 minutes and about a mile and a half and no longer carried cane. I wobbled a bit with looking behind me or to the sides while walking.
Week 24: Walked two miles easily. Looked around me instead of at the ground. Got a second gear! Was walking faster and more confidently. Felt some pain in left knee when stepping up onto curbs. More like normal but not normal yet.
Week 36: Walked completely without pain. Finally. Was striding easily off and onto curbs. Had shaved 15 minutes off my two mile walks because of walking faster
Week 52: I am walking completely normally. Up to all speeds again. Totally pain-free. Looking around me, talking to Mr. Shoes while walking and using hands to speak or point, being totally oblivious to half of what's going on around me because I never have to think about my knees or anything to do with walking. I just walk.

It took a year. Things were really good around six months. Not six weeks. Not even at three months when I could walk really well. But my knees at six weeks were not the way my knees were at six months or nine months. And my knees at one year are a universe better than my knees at six weeks.

Sometimes it's not our knees that are at fault; it's our expectations. At your point of recovery, almost all of us wish we could walk better! That's normal.
 
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@Needhope i have a system for getting my washing downstairs. I throw it down, get myself down the stairs and pick it up at the bottom ! Sorted. Why do you think you need to carry it down ?
 
You’re not a year out from your first TKR and about 6 weeks from your last. This recovery takes time and patience, but your knees will heal and become strong. My RTKR is strong and my go to knee, but it took over a year to get there. Give your April knee what it needs; time, rest, elevation and in a few months you can begin to work on strength. As I said in another post on your thread, walking really is the very best thing you can do for your knees, but because of your fall let your knee settle down first.

Having two knees done within a year is hard, but it will get better. :yes:
 
hopalong61 said:
@Needhope i have a system for getting my washing downstairs. I throw it down, get myself down the stairs and pick it up at the bottom ! Sorted. Why do you think you need to carry it down ?
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I thought of that system, too, just be careful when you get down to where the pile is!
 
I would go down the stairs backward, pulling the laundry basket down each step. Actually I still do it this way because I don’t like carrying the laundry basket down the stairs.
 
In my previous house I almost fell backwards all the way down the basement stairs because I was carrying a full laundry basket up the stairs and when I was just about at the top, the rectangular basket bumped the doorframe and I lost my balance. :yikes:

It was as if God put His hand behind me and stopped my fall, saying, it’s not your time yet. I have no other explanation because I did start to go backwards.

I now have a one story house and no basement. My laundry room is right next to my bedroom, just steps away! :dancy:
 
KarriB said:
I would go down the stairs backward, pulling the laundry basket down each step. Actually I still do it this way because I don’t like carrying the laundry basket down the stairs.
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that's how I do it too. Going up, I toss the basket up ahead of me, go up a few steps and do it again. lol
 
Update LTKR is angry. I’m doing normal everyday stuff. Laundry, dishes, walking around, but mostly these past few days icing and elevating. Still it’s yelling at me. I can’t just sit here all day. That’s ridiculous and frankly very depressing. I’m pacing myself but still today, it’s hurting to simply walk to kitchen, bathroom, etc. I’m really bummed out at this point. The condition of my RTKR still is not as I expected it would be this far out from surgery. Maybe my body hates these foreign objects. I don’t know anymore what I’m doing wrong because I’m doing everyday essential things. No exercises at all since last Tuesday. And I’m not overdoing it with the household crud. Where’s the towel cause I’m ready to throw it in. I want to go for short walks but considering it hurts just to walk 50 feet....? I don’t see how that’s possible. All I want is my normal back. I’m sick and tired of this all. I made a huge mistake doing this to myself I seriously thought I was improving my quality of life, not hampering it.
 
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