Home Alone After Surgery

[Layla]

Hello Maria Le,
Welcome to BoneSmart and thanks for joining us!
You will likely have a better chance of receiving feedback if you start a pre-op thread in the knee area and use the title Stair Lift Chairs....or something similar. The thread will be a place for you to pose other questions / concerns and afford us an opportunity to leave some pre-op reading for you. Please consider it!
Starting a new thread and posting
@Maria Le

 

[Maria Le]

Hi Layla.
Since I am a newbie, I have no experience in this, so I will do as you instructed. Thank you very much.
.

 

[Layla]

That’s okay no worries.
Would you like us to start a thread for you?
@Maria Le

 

[Maria Le]

I did it.
Thanks Layla

 

[raylo]

I just saw this thread... I had left TKR on Sept 28 at an outpatient facility and was home alone after that. My GF has an elderly dog that needed her attention more than I did and he was too infirm to move to my place, so she dropped me off afterwards and that was that. Surgery was late, like 3:00 PM and I was home in my recliner by 7:30 or so.

I had prepped my place by clearing obstacles on the main floor, laying in food supplies, and draping a cord over the bathroom door for me to pull my self up from the potty when needed. I could walk around the house with a cane but used one of those 4 wheel walkers with a shelf to carry my ice machine to the kitchen for refills. That worked like a champ. It was also good for getting up at night for bathroom runs and for brief walks around the main floor in the wee hours.

I live in a 3 level town home and was able to do the stairs good leg up, bad leg down the day after my op no problem. So it was all good for me. Preop fitness and balance are important, so if a patient is lacking much of that you might not want to be home alone. Also, getting an early wellness check is important. In my case home PT started the day after the op. That visit was mostly just a wellness check... except he had me do some of the dreaded heel slides and other basic movements, maybe 10 minutes in all.

The other suggestion I would make is to install one of those toilet seat bidets in the recovery area bathroom. Makes life much easier and more sanitary, especially until you get some ROM back in the operated leg.