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PKR Raffs' Recovery Thread<'

Super report! I'm glad to hear your vacation was successful and your knee is feeling well. I agree in not being ready for another TKR so soon. Injections are ordered for my left knee so I'm hoping to hold off too. Love your new photo!
 
@KarriB Thanks - thought I would confuse everyone by changing my photo again! It is a selfie that I took last week on vacation in sunny Cyprus whilst lounging on a sunbed!
 
LOVE your new pic!!! It EXUDES relaxation, fun and being carefree! Great update, @Raffs!! :yay: So glad to hear you're doing so well! Thanks for the detail - such as doing stairs and hills.. I'm just two weeks behind you and I'm getting a glimpse of better things to come.. :yes!: Maybe you should post a video of you dancing in your living room? :heehee:
 
Update - all being well I am going to return to an office (not my office, but an office where other humans are) on Tuesday November 3rd. Sadly, I'll be on my own upstairs as there isn't room for me with colleagues downstairs but at least other people will be in the same building as me. So, just 7 more days working from home and then my 9 months of solitary will be over, lol! It's a funny old world - last November we were temporarily moved into this office whilst our building was being refurbished and nearly 12 months later I'll be going back there - things have kind of come full circle really. I had no clue when we moved in last year what was ahead of me, my knees were sore and annoying but I wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me what was about to happen. I'm hoping that this will give me some kind of closure but at the same time marks the start of the next chapter. I'm quite emotional today, it's been one heck of a year, rollercoaster doesn't even come close. I'm ready for some nice things to happen now, please!
 
Bring out the champagne and party hats! Cue the music! Time to celebrate the end of Lynn's solitary confinement!!! Here's to nice things from now on. Roller coasters are *so* 2015. Bring in a positive 2016 new year.

You have had quite a year, @Raffs. I knew that I'd be having a knee replacement for years and years the only question was when. I can't imagine what sort of journey it'd be to be living your life and then all of a sudden have this operation and long recovery plopped down smack dab in the middle of it all. You've shown a good attitude and have been generous in sharing your experience, strength and hope wit us despite the shock of your life taking a great big detour. Sure hope 2016 has no shocks and detours, Lynn.
 
I found myself quite emotional when I seemed to be on the mend. I'd get teary whenever someone talked to me about my knee journey. I think that's to be expected when you've gone through such a major surgery and truly a change in your daily life.
Enjoy your last few days of solitude, at least you won't have office politics to worry about at your new location.
 
All sounds great! Enjoy your new eyrie and your new knee. Good luck on the 3rd.
 
Wow!!!! Your photo is gorgeous!!! Vacation certainly agreed with you.
 
Thank you so much everybody for your lovely comments. I honestly hadn't realised how much I had missed you all until I came on here again recently. I was feeling quite down earlier this week and reading your comments and posting on your threads really cheered me up.

Saw my PT on Friday and he discharged me! Said that he is happy that I have regained enough strength to be able to safely go up and down stairs. His advice was to resume as much of a normal life as possible, challenge the knee a bit by walking further or doing more stairs and to throw in some PT exercises at home a few times a week. I am still not back to full strength but this will return in time. He said to try to ignore the tight band and swelling if I can and just to get on start living again - yay to that! No recreational running and no contact sports apart from that I can do whatever I like. He didn't measure my ROM but my OS thought it was 135/0 when I saw him about a month ago - very happy with that. Whatever it is my operated knee has exactly the same ROM has my non-operated knee so I can't hope for more than that really.

Knee is a bit sore, swollen and tight today but I have had a busy weekend so far - two nights out, walking, standing in a bar chatting, lovely restaurant in central London last night, housework and other chores. I am going to spend the afternoon lying on the sofa and will probably treat my knee to some ice. Husband is playing golf all afternoon so I have the house to myself - bliss, lol!

A few more days of solitary and then the next chapter begins. A very cheeky friend of mine on hearing that I was finally returning to an office said "how exciting, you can remember how to talk to people and converse in joined up sentences and stuff?" :loll: What a comedian!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.
 
@Raffs wow you've come a long way since I last checked in!! Looks like things are on the upswing for you hooray!! Congrats on finally being able to work outside of your home. It does feel nice to get out. Hope your other knee responds to the injections and quiets down. Enjoy your busy social schedule!
 
AARGH!! Just when things appeared to be going so well..... Knee has been behaving badly this week. I think it might be my IT band. I've got one of those IT band straps which I have been wearing today and it has helped a bit. Knee is sore and tender and tight again. Feels like it did a month or so ago. Going backwards!! Will massage the band, do some stretches and hope it improves before I go back to work on Tuesday. I really hope it isn't anything else - been quite worried last few days. Seeing my OS on Nov 24th so will have lots to say to him if it hasn't improved by then.
 
I can sympathise with you, my IT Band has been playing up too. Seems we take 2 steps forward then a couple or 3 back - very frustrating indeed. I'm going to have deep massage next week so I'll report on how it goes. x
 
Do you think you could've overdone it somehow to make it angry?
 
sending hugs and TLC to @Raffs and @CATSMUM. and I want to have a very stern word with your IT bands. No treats for them this Halloween. And if they don't behave themselves, they might be liable to find themselves getting coal in their stockings on Christmas and/or loosing every game of dreidel they play on Hannukkah, with every spin of the top coming up "nun" (nothing).
 
@Raffs I still get odd aches and pains after nearly a year but they don't usually last long so I tend to ignore them. I guess it is just residual settling down or the knee complaining if I have done something a bit different.
It's still only just over 5 months since your surgery so you are really only about an third or at the best half way into complete recovery.
Hope your knee settles down very soon.
 
@Raffs - I'm figuring out the pattern myself.. I think I'm getting better one day and the next feels like I did two weeks prior. I've just relegated myself to expect it - and try not to get depressed. - I rarely even take Ibuprofen or Naproxen anymore.. (except when I have a headache from work.. :P ) Overall, you are doing great! Don't forget that! Once you get back in a real work environment, I think that will help too.. As your "cheeky friend" implied, you can work on regaining your social skills.. (She really doesn't know you've been partying with us all this time!!! :heehee:) But I do think having more interaction helps distract from the knee - even when it's not behaving very well.. I'm lucky enough to have a couple gals in my team who have had both knees replaced - a number of years ago - and they help me keep the "eye on the prize".. It will happen.. for you for AND for me.. Hang in my friend!!! I'm sure your knee will feel better by the time you go to see your OS.... I'm still looking forward to the video of you dancing!!! HAHAHA! :loll: I was listening to a CD of Journey (do you know them?) this weekend when I was all by myself.. and was ALMOST inspired enough to take a few dance steps around my living room and I thought of you and smiled.. See? You are an inspiration!! :loveshwr: I'll try sometime when my knee is not still so intimidating.. I KNOW the day will come!!!! :egypdance:
 
Hey hey lady! Yes I also seem to have ups and downs. I am pretty much back to normal life. Knee mostly just bothers in the morning' when getting up and down from a low chair. Walking is pretty good, still exercising 4 days a week and try to stretch. My pains are more in the inside tendon area and outside IT area. Still trying to hold on to the mantra it takes a year for full recovery. Glad you will get to go back to the office for work. Sounds like your vacation was great! Living life!
 
18 week update....but it is not going to be a particularly happy one...

Knee has been really bad these last few days. It is very sore, very tender, more swollen and tight as anything. Finding it difficult to get comfortable in bed and have absolutely gone backwards in terms of walking and discomfort. I am wearing a knee support and an IT band strap. Both help to a degree but don't help as much as they did a few weeks ago. I honestly feel like I did mid September. It is so disheartening and completely worrying. The swelling and soreness is back in the fat pad and I am being driven nuts by a tight band feeling underneath the knee again as well as the tight band across the middle of the knee. I really have no idea why it has taken such a turn for the worse. Perhaps I have been doing more (too much?) but my PT said to get out there and start living....which is what I have been trying to do.

I am seeing the OS in three weeks. I am very scared that something is wrong - impingement or excessive scar tissue or something. The implant itself seems to be behaving well, it is the soft tissues etc in the bottom half of the knee that are causing these issues.

My PT discharged me a couple of weeks ago but I am concerned enough to have made an appointment for tonight with a PT who lives very near to me (my other PT was a long journey away). I think it will be helpful to get advice and opinions from a different PT (as well as the ease of getting there and back).

Perhaps it is my IT band? Perhaps it is a number of things? All I know is that I have had a pretty big setback and I'm scared, very scared.

Anyway, on a happier note I started working in the other office today - woo hoo! So far, so good. It is great being back out in the world and I can see the comings and goings in the street outside my office window. The commute was ok, it was very crowded but the knee was ok - strapped up of course in a support plus IT band strap. It just felt worse than it did when I last used the tube a couple of weeks ago.

Also good news - it looks like we have been successful in securing a new, permanent office (with elevators!). Just got all the legal stuff and fitting out to get through and then, hopefully, we'll be able to move there in a couple of months or so.

I'll report back once I've seen the PT tonight. Please send me your good wishes and hugs, this rollercoaster ride has just about thrown me out of the train this week!!!

Hope everyone is doing a lot better than I am. Will check your threads over the next few days.
 
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