Hello
@Grandma Moses- and
I'm really not surprised that you're experiencing some discomfort while driving the school bus. You were probably a bit ambitious to go back to work at only 7+ weeks after this major surgery, and driving a heavy bus is asking rather a lot of a newly-replaced knee.
Add to that an unpadded seat, bumpy roads, a bus full of noisy children, and that your right leg is the one doing most of the work. Ouch!!
We usually recommend taking about 12 weeks and then doing a
Phased return to work
However, what's done is done and I understand the economic necessity of having to work again.
So, let's see if we can make things bit more comfortable for you.
First, can you buy (or do you have) a foam cushion that will help to soften the bumps at least a little bit?
Second, is the height of the driving seat adjustable? If so, try lowering it a little.
When my knee replacements were new, I found that it hurt if the chair was just a bit too high, as that placed pressure on the back of my thigh, which then transferred to the knee joint itself. Sitting on a slightly lower seat improved matters a lot.
Third, if you do a morning and an afternoon run, do you have time off in between? If so, spend as much of that time as you can resting, icing and elevating your knee. Stop going to PT - your job and your everyday activities are plenty of exercise for your knee.
Most people experience an increase in pain and swelling when they go back to work and that's why you do have to make sure you spend plenty of time resting, icing and elevating.
While going back to work a bit early will upset your knee a bit, as long as you can compensate for that, it shouldn't do any permanent harm to your knee. It might slow down recovery a bit, but recovery normally takes a full year anyway, so there's no need to rush.
Your surgeon is right - sleep disturbance is one of the last things to go. I think it was about 6 months before my sleep pattern returned to something like normal.
I also found that the
Energy drain for TKRs took ages to go away. It was several months before I stopped needing a nap in the middle of the afternoon.