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TKR Fire wolf recovery<

Can you get a nice firm pillow and put it on the chair, turn the chair to the side (no arms, of course) and use that? The joint should be supported unless you're doing an extension exercise.

Another option is to create your own ottoman with a file box or other sturdy crate, and the firm pillow. Again, support the joint when your legs are up.
You should feel no pain or strain.
 
Unfortunately my options are somewhat limited. While I do have an office, most of my time at work is not spent in it, with the exception of last week. I travel to 3 different office locations, so I am just trying to make due with what is available. Unfortunately the chairs have arms, and I already carry over 30 pounds of stuff with me, and while a pillow is not heavy, it is just 1 more thing to try to carry.
I only had 1 leg up, and like I said, I would bend my knee and put my foot on the edge of the chair from time to time so it was still in the air, and other times I just sat normally.
 
Well, Spence was trying to keep me from going to work this morning by holding on tight with a good morning hug! Same routine as yesterday except today I overslept a bit, so had to rush around. But we made it out for our 2 hr drive and got to work on time. He was not as well-behaved today, and I struggled all day trying to get comfortable. He gave me an earlier reminder that he needed his medicine as well. Driving bothered him more today as well for some reason. It is my driving leg, but most of the time I haven't had any major issues. Today I was getting pain that was moving around to various areas around kneecap, especially when braking. Nothing that really made me flinch, but enough to be bothersome. I can certainly see why a gradual return to work is recommended! I am now completely exhausted, and have to get up again tomorrow and make an hour & 45 min drive to attend a monthly meeting, though I can sleep until 6:15am. I'm pretty used to being tired all of the time due to the narcolepsy, but this has really been zapping what energy I do have.:tiredwheel: I hope that it doesn't take too long to adjust to being back at work in terms of energy. So, I am now in bed with ice on for the 1st time all day. Hopefully Spence will decide on an early bedtime and be willing to sleep through the night. If not, well there is always the "games" to play here!
 
Yeah - those first weeks back to work are exhausting - and to have all that driving on top -- it's a lot of down time for Spence. Hope you can get some comfortable sleep tonight. My first few weeks back I could not wait for the weekends to just crash and rest. Hang in there -- it will take a few weeks to get used to the routine. I'm currently icing and elevating after a relatively easy day at work -- but still a bit swollen and achy.
 
Thanks, @kmak81230 . I feel the same about the weekends, but unfortunately I have to work on Saturday (2 hrs away of course!) to make up for being off on Mon for OS appt. So while this past weekend I had an extra day to recuperate from 1st week back, this weekend I will only have 1 day. :bawl: I am starting to wonder if all of the swelling will ever go away. There is an area that was swollen all of the time prior to TKR, which the OS recommended not even bother to attempt to drain it as it would just fill up again, but that area on the lateral side just below where kneecap would end is still it's same pre-surgery squishy self. I guess only time will tell. It's just a good thing that I like ice!:ice::heehee:
 
I actually noticed a bit of a dimple today that has not been there before so perhaps less swelling in that area - other areas still swollen - not painful, just stiff which I'm sure contributes to my crappy ROM - wish I had a crystal ball to see what the next 3 months would look like so perhaps I wouldn't worry so much :hissy: sorry you only get one day off this weekend. I was so clueless about the length of this recovery. :banghead:
 
Well, it seems as the work week continues, Spence keeps raising the stakes of his rebelling against work. I started of this morning with pain and hugs (stiff & tight). Pain mainly on the medial side of Spence. Took 2 500mg Tylenol and 50mg Tramadol before starting my drive. Spence was not happy about driving either. Fortunately it was mostly interstate driving today so was able to use cruise control most of the time. The pain wasn't bad, just annoying, especially since I hear about people being pain free soon after tkr, and I would think that at 13 weeks it should be gone. Still had difficulty finding a comfortable way to sit after awhile, but I managed. Had some colleagues tell me that I look "all better" as I am walking well. Also someone told me that it's all psychological at this point. I don't believe that, as this is certainly not the first orthopaedic surgery I have rehabbed, and 6 of those were on this knee. I don't know what else to do to speed things up any. Still get the tightness, and it's still swollen. So I will continue with Tylenol rest of the day......
 
The things that would "speed this up" are the things many of us don't want to do, or can't do (for personal reasons), things like not working, driving, or sitting at a desk for long periods, and instead spending that time resting, icing, and elevating. It's one of the trade-offs, or choices, we make about recovery. If this, then that. Some people go on trips, vacations, or take on demanding landscaping or home projects, knowing their new knees are likely to give them grief. We all do the best we can.

One thing is sure, though: you can't speed things along. You knee requires time and rest to heal. Doing more than it is ready to do will simply slow down the recovery. Maybe not a lot. And maybe it's a necessary trade-off. But the knee still needs what it needs. Time. Rest. Gentle exercise. Icing and elevation if you have swelling and pain.

If I learn of any shortcuts, I'll be sure to post about them here first... before writing my bestselling book about Pain-Free Total Knee Replacement!
 
I think we all probably have different perceptions of what pain is. I was fortunate to not have much of the unbearable post-surgical pain and was able to get off the oxy during the day pretty quickly. But what I call discomfort - the naggy aches and pains that move all over the place and are more prevalent some days than others - I have had every single day since the surgery. While I have small periods of time each day where I don't notice the knee, there are also more periods each day where I have what I call discomfort. I have also had people comment on my improved walking. I appreciate that yet it is still deliberate walking in that I feel the knee with almost every step or I am concentrating to have good form so that my extension gets a stretch. I have only had one 36 hour period with no Tylenol in the past 13 weeks. There certainly is a huge psychological component to recovery and I know I'm psychologically much stronger than I was 6 weeks ago, but the discomfort is real for me. Good luck with "speeding things up" - HA; And if you do, please let me know what the magic elixir is. Cheers :smile2:
 
Thanks, @SusieShoes and @kmak81230 , at least you both made me laugh! I think that what he meant by it being psychological at this point is that if I just tell myself it's better then it will be better, like it's my attitude holding me back. But I have never had a quit, give up, back down, etc attitude towards rehab and recovery. If anything, I have a history of pushing too hard to get early results, and I learned that that is something that TKRs won't tolerate. So I guess I am still working on finding the balance of doing enough without doing too much. I really don't think that I would have had the unbelievable post surgery pain if not for the fall. I do have a high pain tolerance, but this is wearing on me. Yes, much of it is achy, but sometimes it's more of a stabbing type concentrated pain. I have had days without it, but that was before returning to work. I did have a day this past weekend when I didn't take even Tylenol as it felt so good that meds didn't even cross my mind, well other than some stiffness and the way I could feel Spence moving, clunking, whatever you want to call it. Unfortunately, when comments are made about being better, it aggravates me, and then I want to push harder to prove that I can do things like "normal". I know that it only impacts me and not them, but I think that comes from the athlete in me. I don't want to be a whiner either, so I guess I am just stuck a little. That was part of the reason I joined here was to get support from others who understand from going through the same thing, and I do appreciate the support a great deal! Trying to navigate this recovery on my own just got too difficult, as I was spending way too much time in my own head.
 
I guess the other thing I have working against me in terms of others' perception is my age, and the fact that I have always been relatively active, so I think there is that idea that I should be better faster, especially since people love to talk about their parents or grandparents who had tkr. I am not happy about the weight shift I have had either. I can't say that I really gained weight per say, but certainly gave up muscle for fat, so if they weighed the same, I would have more of a change on the scale as opposed to just how my clothes fit. I know that I am very hard on myself, and my own worst enemy, but it is challenging not having a support system in my life (I mean in person!).
Ok, rant over!:snork:
 
I get what you mean about being driven to get results. I'm terrifically competitive, and when I was younger this gave me endless grief--no one wins ALL the time, not even me :tantrum: --so I learned to dial it back. Hard. It can be done. One vital lesson I learned was that I couldn't force people or situations to be what I wanted them to be. They weren't ever going to be what I wanted them to be, and I was signing up for failure. I started to look at things from the perspective of "What about this can I control?"

So it is with this recovery: What about it can I control? Your answers to that question will be different from mine, or anyone else's, of course. The important thing is to not get upset over those things you can't control. You cannot control--none of us can--how long this recovery will take. Maybe we can influence it a little in one direction or another, but that's the extent of it. We can't truly control it.
I don't know if this perspective will help, but I'm throwing it out there just in case it does. :flwrysmile:
 
I'm the same Fire wolf -- before the surgery I was thinking "I got this" - I was in good shape, I like to exercise, was very active (I played in a hockey tournament two weeks before the surgery) and don't mind hard work, yada yada yada. . . Even after I found Bone Smart after about 4 or 5 weeks post op, it still took me a couple more weeks to cut back enough to start to reverse the swelling and inflammation. It was also so hard to get all this conflicting advice about what to do or not do. So I hear ya!!! And you are definitely not alone in the frustration over this long journey. I think I am now at a good place in terms of being able to balance the activity - but I sure as :censored: wish I was better. :banghead:
 
Spot on @SusieShoes about control. That has helped me a lot in this recovery. Those of us who are familiar with addiction or have had addiction in our families are probably very familiar with the serenity prayer. It has been very helpful to me in this recovery (along with the mantra "one (week, day, hour) at a time."
 
Thank you both! I think that alot has to do with feeling like I haven't been "myself" for quite a few years due to surgeries, rehab, etc. Here is a look at the past few years, to give some perspective:

2/28/11- sub-acromial decompression rt shoulder
9/13/11- revision sub-acromial decompression rt shoulder
1/17/12- rt biceps tenodesis
1/21/14- rt knee meniscal allograft transplant
7/2/15- rt shoulder focal arthroplasty (basically partial shoulder replacement due to avascular necrosis)
5/12/17- rt TKR
Prior to TKR, was wearing a Breg unloader brace all day everyday for at least 6 months just to be able to get around a little bit better.

I know that some of those have nothing to do with this site, but it has just been 1 after another, and I am so tired of pain, surgery, and rehab!
@SusieShoes , I do completely understand what you are saying, and I have dialed back, and am trying just to worry about what I can control, it's just frustrating as this is the first time that I have not been able to power through a recovery, and I guess there is really just a bigger part of me that is worn down from not only all of the above, but from a bunch of really not good stuff that has happened in past 3 years. And yes, @kmak81230 I do try to take one day, hour, min at a time much of the time, just feels like I am trying to swim upstream in an avalanche of quicksand!:swim: Only I don't even know how to swim!:yikes:
 
Wow - your body has been through the wringer. I expect you are over it - much more than me for sure. Just know that all the smarties will be glad to throw you a lifeline if you get in over your head :flwrysmile:
 
I really do appreciate the support, even if my whiny posts don't seem to reflect it!:smile2:
 
Well, after being aggravated by colleagues yesterday, I decided "to heck with everything" and did what I seem to do best....push things just a bit!:cool: Since yesterday was a meeting held near Hersheypark, I decided that that was where I was going afterwards so I could release my frustrations. I mean, I was so close, and I have a season pass, and I really like roller coasters, so why not, right? I would only have to drive home 1 hr & 45 min afterwards, so no big deal, right? Right! So I went, and I walked alot (over 10,000 steps), I ate some things that were not good for me, rode some rides including a roller coaster, and tried not to think about Bionic Spence, work, life, etc. Then I drove home, took a shower, grabbed the ice:ice:,took 2 Tylenol PM and 2 Tramadol and went to bed. :sleeep:I had some difficulty getting up this morning as this has been an exhausting week in general due to having to drive 2 hrs to and from work several days, and the drive to and from the meeting/Hersheypark yesterday. Having Narcolepsy is not helping in all of this either!:no-fin: I was a little stiff and swollen, which I expected, and so I pulled out the very fashionable thigh high TED hose that I had to wear for 8 weeks post-op, and decided that I was going to hug Bionic Spence as much as he has been hugging me! I am hoping that with all of the sitting that I have to do today, and because I haven't found a comfortable solution to how to elevate it at work, that they will work their magic and help keep things a little more under control. So I drove only 45 min to work today, grabbed my bags of stuff, through them over my rt shoulder (of course) plus a box of supplies I was given yesterday, which all total weighed somewhere around 40 pounds, and I walked a block and a half from the parking lot to the office. I was very happy to just drop everything once I got into my office. Now I probably could have temporarily parked my car by the entrance to the building so that I wouldn't have to carry things as far, but I refuse to let Spence win!:good-bad:I only took Tylenol this morning, skipped the Tramadol. I am almost due for my next dose, and am just going to stick with the Tylenol for the day. I of course encountered additional coworkers today who told me that I look like I am doing great, and I just said Thank You and walked away. I have decided that I am doing great, even if Bionic Spence is not and has a bit of a road ahead of him. Walking and exercise makes me feel good, and while I have limited options with regards to access to exercise, I can at least walk. So I took a break and walked the building in a vertical circle, walking up on set of stairs (3 flights), down a hall, and down another set as made my way back to my office. I didn't think about how Spence was or would feel, I just did it. I know that I will be able to lay down with ice on it when I get home, so I am not going to stress about it. It is what it is at this point. I get better by pushing myself, so that is what I am going to do. At least that is my thought process for now. Of course, at any time the overwhelming frustration and depression may rear it's ugly head again, and I will be back to "poor me", but hey, I guess I will deal with that when the time comes.
 
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