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TKR Ortho dr or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Knee!

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Today I am having pain behind my knee and on the outside of my calf below the knee. Nothing horrible, just new. Had PT today and everything seems to be going along well. I tried sleeping in my bed last night, but no go. I did finally get to sleep, only to wake up with strange new pains. Finally said the heck with it and went to my recliner sofa where I slept quite well the rest of the night.
 
The aches & pains seem to migrate, depending on which muscles & tendons are being worked or stressed and which neural pathways are awakening after being reconnected. But I've noticed that the aches are occurring less often and less intensely. You probably will, too.
 
I was going to say something similar to Sandy. Seems like every day you "feel it" somewhere different.
 
Just had my haircut for first time. It felt wonderful to be out and doing something normal. Bt the end, however, I was ready to hurry it up! Twenty minutes with leg down seems to be my limit. I am finding about one "excursion" a day does it for me. I had an extensive PT yesterday and knee is a bit more swollen than usual. Still gotta get up and do my exercises.
 
Hi Jean, sitting here elevating and icing . We had a big family get together today. All three daughters and their families were here plus my two brothers and my sister. My husband went out and bought pizza for the kids and chicken and barbecue for the adults plus we had fresh corn on the cob, watermelon, and cantaloupe. We were celebrating my granddaughter Chloe' s sixth birthday. All I did was sit and give directions! Lol! We had a great time. Everyone was gone by 5:00 and I took pain meds and fell instantly asleep.
I had an extensive hour of PT Thursday and have not been the same since. For the first time yesterday I found myself depressed and feeling a bit sorry for myself. Kind of whiney! The visit today cheered me up somewhat and I reminded myself it had only been three Weeks.
So, enough about me. How have you been?
 
Sounds like a good day! I'm sitting with my knee "on ice." We drove 560 miles today to our place in MN. I drove about 150 miles and did pretty well. We stopped frequently and I got out and walked around. Made the trip longer than usual, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I let hubby I load the car, make dinner and clean up! I think I'll go to bed early. It's supposed to be 42 degrees tonight and we have a fire in the fireplace....just crazy! We're only here until Wednesday, but I promised my husband we'd get here before my next knee. We usually are here 5-6 times a summer. We were here Memorial Day weekend and now. That's going to be it for what I'm calling "The Lost Summer."
 
Wow, that weather is incredible! Where exactly is your cabin? I am glad you made it okay. That was a very long trip. I think your characterization of the "lost" summer is the way I feel too. I am definitely getting tired if doing nothing and I feel bad for my poor husband spending his summer vacation nursing an invalid! I have been meaning to ask where you are located in Chicago. We have old friends who live in Schaumburg, I hope you sleep well!
 
I had a visit from old friends who drove from the Pacific Northwest to visit, so I went out for the first time. We went out for breakfast, then came back home where I iced and elevated, then out again for dinner, and back for same. I did feel a lot tireder than I would have normally. I've enjoyed the visit, but am really tired. On the positive front, I slept all night in the bed last night!
 
I have had very little pain thanks to good drugs but I seem to be having more since PT intensified. I have read several times on here about painful areas shifting. Maybe that is what is happening to me. I seem to be having long bone pain. I tried last night to go longer without pain meds and made it almost six hours but woke up hurting. Maybe it is too early to decrease meds.
 
Had a tough morning yesterday. I think the visit from friends and not napping as much caught up with me. We were supposed to meet our friends for breakfast, but when I started to get dressed, I was feeling so bad, I decided to take a couple of Tylenol and lie down for half an hour. I completely conked out, and my husband took pity on me and cancelled the breakfast. I woke up an hour later, and found that I didn't have to get dressed after all. Well played, husband, well played.

I iced and elevated and watched mindless TV throughout the morning, and by the afternoon, felt so much better. I also had a complete turn-around in the lower GI which I think made me feel better as well. Although things had been moving, I don't think they had been moving as much as they needed to.

I slept on the bed most of the night last night. It's still harder finding a comfortable sleeping spot for a long time. I'm a stomach/side sleeper, and the knee will only tolerate that for a short time, so then it's the turn over, re-adjust, etc. It always takes such a long time. Finally got up about 4 a.m. and was back on the recliner sofa. Got to get back with my structured therapy today, since I let it go during the over-doing phase of my weekend.

Six hours is about all I can go without pain meds during the night, but can go longer during the day depending on what I'm doing.
 
I am with you on the six hours. I thought I could stretch it out a bit, but it isn't working very well. I went to McDonald's with my husband this morning for breakfast. I did okay for about twenty minutes and was ready to go. I seem to have more bend this morning but it hurt sitting very long with it bent. I walked to the car with my walker and felt like I was walking pretty normal. My husband insists that I take the walker whenever we go out. I have to say that I walk faster and have a better gait with the walker. I use the cane inside. SoMe adventure we are on, huh?
 
Had a couple of interesting things happen. First, I ran out of pain pills. I take Norco, and I had put in the refill order the day I got my staples out - last Weds. The girl at the pharmacy told me they would mail them to me because the refill date was not till Friday, but the order would be processed right away (this is a military hospital and very picky about controlled substances.) My P.A. had told me to call him if they wouldn't give them to me today, but I thought it would be OK to have them mailed since I still had some, and surely the mail would not take that long. Silly me!

I thought surely I would get them on Friday, couldn't imagine not receiving them on Saturday, and by Saturday night, I was in full hoarding mode, counting out how many I had left, and how many hours I would have to go between each one. I contacted my P.A. on Monday morning and explained what was going on, and that I was coming to the hospital (which is 70 miles away) on Tuesday, and staying overnight while my dog was being spayed, so I wouldn't be at home to get the pills until Wednesday. I asked if he could he could get me an emergency stash if they didn't arrive on Monday. He found out they hadn't been processed until Friday (thank you unknown girl at the desk,) and if I hadn't received them by 3 p.m., he would get me some on Tuesday.

I haven't had that much pain, certainly not as much as some others or as much as I was afraid I would have, but it's amazing how not having the pills made me so anxious. I wound up yesterday with three pills. I took one at 11 a.m. and I tried to stretch out as long as I could but by 7:30 p.m., I had to take another pill which left only one. I took my last at 4 a.m., and felt completely naked. Thank goodness my P.A. came through with the emergency stash today, and hopefully, the refill will be at home when I return tomorrow. I was already stretching the time between pills longer, and doing fine, until I thought I was about to run out. I feel much calmer now.

The other thing was that my steri strips started falling off, and I could see a big opening in a couple of places along my incision. It looked bad to me, but I told me P.A. about it, and when I went to the hospital today, he looked at it and replaced all the steri strips, but he said it didn't look bad at all. Anytime I can see below the first layer of skin, it looks bad to me. Have any of you had any gapes in your incision?
 
Three week anniversary: I can go at least six hours between pain pills, sometimes longer. I walk with cane most of time except when I forget it and walk with nothing! No one's measured my ROM, but I think it might be 110. Extension is better but not zero yet. Still have swelling from time to time, so icing and elevating is what I do most of the time.

Finally received my pain med refill by mail today. I checked the tracking number just to see where it went,and why it would take so long, and it came from South Carolina! This does not compute.

On the plus side, slept in the bed all night last night although numerous wake-ups. Am finding that it is not so painful to move my leg in bed as it was. Yeah progress!
 
Glad to hear your stash came through! The VA can provide amazingly good care but the bureaucracy can be infuriating. It's only as good as its weakest link--which is often someone with limited training just trying to get her hours in. (Gives dedicated civil servants a bad name).

Your ROM is terrific, especially since your surgery was a month later than mine! My ROM's roughly the same, though my pain level is much less. My PT is happy with my progress, and so am I. In two weeks I will be taking my first long-distance drive way downstate (midway bet. Carbondale, St. Louis & Paducah) to finish mixing & mastering at my engineer's studio on his farm. His house & studio are in a little wooded glen on a pond--it's so peaceful, with no distractions from the music. Terrible cell coverage, slow & spotty internet, no broadcast TV (satellite-only, as it's too far out in the sticks for cable). His wife is a vegetarian cook, and he's mostly vegan, so staying low-carb there is a challenge (I usually bring my own low-carb bread). Dining options (other than fast food) in town are limited to Mexican or Chinese (and without access to an Asian market with appropriate veggies the food's not as authentic as it is in the city). It's about 4.5 hrs. down the freeway and another 90 min-2 hrs. along country roads, so frequent rest stops will probably necessitate a longer driving day than usual. But since I'm not going to be doing any tracking (playing or singing), I can sit with my foot elevated in the studio as much as possible while we work.
 
Are you going to be driving all that distance? Hope you handle that well. I know I couldn't do it now, but you're ahead of me on the time scale. So you're putting out a CD? Would love to hear it. My hubby loves the sound of hammered dulcimer. Neither of us are musicians although we have performed in musicals - we're the character voices. Have a great trip!
 
Yup, handling the drive myself. I'll give myself plenty of time for rest stops. As to CDs, this "ain't my first rodeo," though my recordings have definitely improved over time. (Our most recent one got airplay on all 14 cuts and landed us on live NPR-syndicated radio). We'll be releasing a holiday EP first (Christmas, Hanukkah, ecumenical, serious & funny) and a couple of months later our duo followup full CD. Sometime in 2014 my second solo CD (13 years after my first) will be out. I also have a CD with my previous duo SASS! (exclamation point intentional), released in 2006. PM me for details about them--@Josephine, can we mention the actual album titles and links over in the Social Room? (Speaking of the music thread in the Social Room, one of our Bonesmarties is a member of Red Shoes, which is a British-Celtic folk band who've collaborated with members of both Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span........as Wayne & Garth used to say, bowing & scraping, "I'm not worthy!").

I play mountain dulcimer, which is strummed, but not hammer dulcimer (although rumor has it I may have performed hammered on one or two occasions back in my wild youth). I am in awe of hammer players: hammer dulcimer is like playing the inside of a grand piano with pencil erasers in the dark.

I usually get the character parts in the Bar Show too--in fact, folks say I'm quite a character in my own right....
 
I think I've learned a new lesson -Just because you could, doesn't mean you should! I tried the recumbent bike yesterday, and it felt so easy that I did about 15 minutes - some rocking, some backward rotation, some forward. I had a much tougher night last night, and my knee is stiffer. I think the 15 minutes of recumbent biking was about 10 minutes too much. Gonna try some gentle stretches this a.m. to loosen my knee before PT this p.m.
 
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