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TKR Beachy in recovery<

@sistersinhim .
I've always been curious about how they worked. We have a shark that works on a cordless ion battery. It's a powerhouse, but very lightweight. Does a good job with sand.
 
@beachy, I was just thinking how great it is for you to have normal conversations - about dogs, vacuums, husbands who clean, etc. Trying not to concentrate on your knee is really helpful. Yep, it hurts and will for awhile, but there are lots of other things going on in the world. Good stuff like dogs, cats, and Roombis! Since the clean gene missed my house (my sister got it instead), I may have to look at a Roombi. I know this forum is supposed to be about our recoveries but sometimes it's just nice to act normal and forget our knees. P.S. I got my husband a great tee shirt from Zazzle that says "I survived my wife's knee replacement". He may not ever wear it but laughed when he saw it.
 
PT is at 1 today. :bored:

I had a little set back yesterday. When I stood up from recliner and transferred to walker I think I put too much weight on tkr leg. I saw stars. Got ice on it right way and spent the rest of the day icing elevating and massaging around the incision. Knee was angry and that muscle that runs down the inside to below the knee in upper calf was most unhappy.

That muscle is still sore today. More so than usual. It's been a problem since meniscus repair 1/2016.
Knee is still sore and swollen.

I'm going to ask pt if she can help with it. Yesterday, before I hurt myself, I felt so great! Bend was good, pain minimal. I took 2 oxycodone at 6 this am and dozed off til 9. Took 1000 mg Tylenol at 9am.

I just took 10 mg (2 tabs @5 mg each) oxycodone at 11 am. Hope that helps for awhile. Bottle does say as needed. I was down to 1 1/2 tabs every 4 hrs til now.

I guess this is one of the setbacks that you veterans speak of.
 
@MSgirl .
:goodpost:

I love your post! I'd rather concentrate on the goodness in life....the normal things that you mentioned, getting back to my life and enjoying the things I've been missing.
But the knee yells and must be heard at times LOL.

Thanks for that post!
 
The "little" setback was a reminder from your leg that it was cut on, sawed on and pounded on. Yikes! Amazing that our legs don't just say "forget it". I haven't had the nerve to watch the YouTube video of a knee replacement and may never do it, but folks here say that if anyone ever tries to minimize what they did to us, they should be made to watch it. For me, I'm really proud of what I went through. I love my scars because I look at them and think I'm pretty tough. I never hide them. You will be proud of yours too because it shows that you are someone to be reckoned with! At least I tell myself that!!! Keep on keeping on. You are doing great.
 
Hi Beachy! I've glanced over your recovery thread and will read it more thoroughly in a while. So glad your surgery is over and it sounds like your on the road to a "normal" recovery. The past two weeks have been crazy here. Have been focusing on and looking forward to our beach vacation ever since my surgery in July and - of course - all h*@l broke loose before we left. Computer died, the remnants of the hurricane went through here so we lost power the night before we were supposed to leave....we were up most of the night and started throwing away stuff in the refrigerator at 4 a.m. Good news is we'd loaded the car the morning before the storm got bad; bad news is that when we went out to the car, a limb had fall on the windshield and shattered it. We were lucky it didn't entirely collapse - but anyway, blah, blah, blah. It wasn't a good way to start a "vacation" and we had some problems related to the electricity when we got back. The good news is that it was great to finally get to a hotel and have the first hot shower in 3 days.

And I got to fulfill my dream of standing in the cold water at the Cape! It was 45 degrees, felt like 38 and everyone who passed me made some comment about how I must be crazy. There is something about cold, very salt water which my knees, ankles and feet really, really like. It was wonderful!

Ok; enough about me. Just didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about you and want to send good wishes for better days ahead.
 
Sorry about your setback. Feel better and the usual, rest, elevate and ice. Great to read you updates.

Speaking of other things I have a baby deer we feed and it's the cutest thing. She loves my husband. She eats out of his hand and when he gives her a banana she just goes wild. We also feed a huge buck we named Bucky and he too eats from your hand and loves to be pet. We have not seen Bucky in awhile due to the rut but after that is over he will be back for his winter feedings.

The other day when the PT came she was so overwhelmed at the deer coming over to her when she got out of the car. She was taking pictures of them all.

Well, nice to think of something else for a moment. Take care and good luck at PT... Mine got cancelled I just found out two minutes ago. So do some PT for me

Schpooko
 
@Laurenkate .
Hey there! That sounds like a really awful way to start vaykay!
Sometimes you just can't make that stuff up LOL! But, it sounds like you rolled with the punches and had a great time. I agree that ocean water is invigorating and good for the soul. I like it a tad warmer though:heehee:
We did get rain from the tail end of that storm, but nothing terrible.

@schpooko .
OMG that has to be the cutest thing ever! Bucky is out and about making more baby deer.
It is nice to think of something other than the knees.

My pt will be here around 1. She's afraid of my 7 lb beast so Tootsie has to go in another room. She would keep over if Bucky greeted her :rotfl:
I'd love to do some additional PT for you because I LOVE pain.
 
I’m done with in home pt. She’s scheduled for wed and fri and I’m cancelling. I can do the exercises at home without her and her little measuring device. She’s appalled that I’m only at 77 flex and 2 extension. I’m not.

I start outpatient on Monday and want to be ready for that. I like my pt guy. He listens to me and helps me. And I know he won’t hurt me.

Have to admit that I’m very stiff and ouchie today. Lingering from yesterday when I hurt myself. All I can do is ice and elevate and wait for the swelling to subside. Darn, I was feeling great yesterday.
 
It hardly takes anything to cause a setback, especially this early. :console2:

Your ROM is fine. I wonder what hers would be this soon after surgery.
 
Sounds like your regular PT may be more helpful--and sensible. You're very early and your ROM is ok at this stage.

Sometimes our muscles get tight after the surgery. I always seem to have tight muscles and my PT showed me some gentle stretches. It's not like it healed the knee faster, but it helped with cramping. Still that might be for a bit down the road. Right now icing and elevating are key. As Jockette said, it doesn't take much to aggravate the baby knee.
 
I too think your regular PT guy sound sensible and like someone to work with. The “not hurt me” part is very important. Recovery — just life! — is tough enough without someone injuring you to top it off.

The kind of setback you just had is common. Because of the surgery itself, and the muscle weakness that goes with it (both pre-surgery inactivity and post-surgery conditions), your muscles aren’t strong enough to do a good job of stabilizing the knee. Normal healthy muscle does a great job of that. But our new TKR relies on weaker muscles for a while, and those muscles can get hurt by things that wouldn’t normally even register as possible stressors, like shifts in position. So they get hurt easily. Nothing you can really do about it, either. You’re already being careful about how you move.

Ice. Elevate. Baby the poor wounded thing. It’s an infant in so many ways. As your muscles get stronger and used to supporting the knee again, as you walk and exercise gently and return to normal movement, you will have fewer and fewer setbacks of any kind.
 
Thank you ladies. Of course you are right. It helps when you bring me back to reality away from the “what if’s”.

The pain meds are barely helping. Then the mind starts to wander....could it be a clot? Nah, I’m shooting lovenox in my belly everyday.

Did I mess something up? Really badly? Nah. Will I be like this forever. Nah that’s crazy talk.

The home nurse comes this am. I’ll talk to her about it. My bp was low yesterday and still not much appetite. I’m in sloth mode. It’s hard to feel like this when you’ve had a glimpse of almost pain free with a knee that bends. That was great on Sunday!

Thanks for letting me whine. This too shall pass.
 
beachy said:
My bp was low yesterday and still not much appetite. I’m in sloth mode. It’s hard to feel like this when you’ve had a glimpse of almost pain free with a knee that bends. That was great on Sunday!
Click to expand...
Low blood pressure, no appetite, energy drain, post op blues, all work together here to put you in sloth mode. Your body is trying so hard to heal the trauma done to it, there’s little energy left for anything else.

That good day Sunday proves you have the potential and will get there in time. :console2:
 
@beachy hello fellow Marylander. I’m originally from Havre de Grace, been in Florida since 95’. I did great my first week post op and thought how easy it was! Then the second week hit and everything fell apart. I laid in bed and cried for most of the week. My foot became numb and I couldn’t sleep at night, nor nap in the daytime. I’ve finally slept the last 2 nights, this is week 6 for me.

My at home nurse and PT were amazing! I’m now outpatient PT and they are great too. I always feel so much better after therapy. Plus it was good to get out of the house. I’m hoping this is the beginning of normal sleep. I’ve started taking 300 mg gabapentin before sleep, which works now. It didn’t during week 2 and 3. It’s like playing musical chairs to see which med is going to work at which time.

I love your humor in your posts!:catdance: I hope your recovery is going well. Have a fabulous day!
 
At not quite 2 weeks out ,you are definitely at that frustrating stage where you start to think setbacks are unique to you, there must be something wrong, why am I not farther along . I handle pain and the healing progress pretty good for a male, but this procedure really tested me. Can’t stress enough how patience, and a positive attitude can keep you pushing forward. Can’t say exactly how your time table will go, but midway thru my 7 th week, I have little to no pain, just some discomfort that comes n goes. Sleep is pretty much back to normal, and I can turn my knee in pretty much any sleep position, without creating a 5 alarm fire. Can sit thru dinner,and pretty much forget about my knee, and that is a btreakthru you are really going to like ,the time you do something you normally did in past and realize you didn’t even think about that darn knee.

You really are early on in the healing curve, so don’t think you are the exception to It, where things are going wrong cause there not. Take the small gains, expect some setbacks, And stay as positive as possible. At 3 weeks I didn’t want to leave the house . At 7 weeks try and stop me.
 
@texasjeri hello! I know one thing I can’t stress enough is to stay on top of the pain. After my 1 week follow up with my orthopedic doc, he walked out of the room after doing check up. He didn’t give me the next weeks rx for pain meds. I had to ask the MA to have him come back so I could get a prescription. Due to the new laws, they can only be given weekly. Needless to say, I stopped all pain meds after second week, and I know this was a huge set back. I got fitted in at the last minute for my outpatient surgery and everything slipped through the cracks post op. While I was there for my follow up, 4 weeks, I just broke down in his office. He was very attentive and I explained to him that I had to do all the scheduling for my after care because I never heard a thing from his office. I set that follow up appointment by calling his office and they saw me the next day. I was never scheduled for anything after first appointment. I set up my PT. I did all the after care. I should NEVER have been off pain meds that early through which I suffered. The whole experience left me exacerbated and left out.

I’m finally feeling human again at 6 weeks out. Sleep has finally arrived. I did call orthopedic doc because I couldn’t sleep and his MA said to see my primary care doc. I just lost it! Really! For one, I don’t have one, for another thing if I did it takes forever to get an appointment, for another...I can’t sleep because of what he did, my knee replacement! It was frustrating.

Hope your surgery goes well. It’s good knowing this forum is here. It certainly has helped me understand what and why I feel this way.
 
Wow! I’m gobsmacked by the support!
Thank you all.

:yahoo:

Home nurse just left. My pulse was higher than normal...can’t remember the#. But, I did walk a good way to the lobby to let her in. I got some weird looks from kids leaving for school. Must be the “outfit”. Hot pink Capri pj pants, pretty teal color sweatshirt, black and aqua blue knee high compression socks. Guess it did look like a clown costume.


She felt the knee was more swollen than before and warm to the touch and today my bp was up. That and high pain level made her want to leave a message for OS.

I told her about PT....it’s all the same company....and she agreed it’s best to cancel the last 2 home sessions.

So, onward. I’ll see what today brings.
 
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