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Revision TKR Totally recovered at last!

Hi Marian, hope all reports come back good for your daughter. She sounds like such a nice, positive person. Glad to hear you used that $ towards your new bike and helmet, great idea. You've gotten through some tough times and just kept moving ahead no matter what came along. That takes alot of strength and patience. You should be very proud of yourself for handling it all so well. I will make 6 mos since my last TKR and am finally seeing the light, hooray !!!
 
Enjoy your bike!! It is absolutely the best exercise/pastime out there and not only that you feel so virtuous after a good ride.


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@karol723 Im glad to hear that you are doing well. The doctor said that my daughter's test looked benign but there is still the two weeks for the pathology to be completed to confirm it. So fingers crossed.
 
My dear Marion: just catching up on your latest postings to see "where you are" with life. Cannot believe your surgery costs so much money, darn! Did you ever get it straightened out with your insurance company??

Well, you KNOW I went through with my insurance company and my lack of pain mgmt. treatment...so HAP HAP HAPPY IT'S OVER! :eyebrows:

Hope your bike riding is going well. Are you back to work now?

Newbie tkr
 
@Newbie tkr Fortunately since I had changed my insurance for this year I didn't have to pay anything out of pocket compared to to last years $15,000 I paid for the original TKR. I have to be back to work on the 19th of June. I'm a big worried I won't have the stamina but I can make a few modifications so I can sit at least a little bit more than normal. No bike riding yet since its been raining since I got it home. I've got to put together the trainer so I can ride it as an exercise bike. Glad that you seem to be doing well now.
 
Wow Bionic, you DO sound good! Please try not to "project" (if you even ARE) on the 19th of June...so easy for ME to get ahead of myself that way. It sounds like you've got some options (potential modifications) you can make at work. I hope everyone there is understanding about your situation.
Hugs, Newbie
 
Hi

Oh Marian I just read some of your thread. I so feel for you in all of this. You have an awful lot going on right now personally and trying to recover from your revision. I hope that all goes well with your daughter.

How are you doing with your bike? I still can't do a proper rotation with my left knee. I tried on holiday last week. Frustrating.

Please take care
Best wishes for you and your family :SUNsmile::flwrysmile:
Love Ann x
 
@Nana moon 27 This is the first day it hasn't rained since I picked up my bike. I'm going to take it out for a short ride. I've got my helmet ready too. I've been very lucky in that I was able to do a complete rotation 3 weeks out without any problems. I surprised myself and my PT too.

11 weeks out already! Two weeks from today I go back to work. On the plus side I can walk unaided without a limp. I can ride my bike. I am not in any pain ( except a problem with my lower leg which I will talk to OS about next week). I'm bored and am missing being with other people. On the minus side I can't seem to sleep at night yet. My knee swells after a short period of time and for some reason my lower back just feels weak with a dull ache when I'm up doing things like going to get some groceries. I also still get very tired after a full day out and I need a day or two to recharge. ( won't be possible when I go back to work). My house also needs a good cleaning!

I tried a compression sleeve as suggested by my OS office but behind of my knee still feels a bit swollen. I would try a compression stocking but I know it will be very hot to wear at work since it already is hot there with the lab coat that I have to wear.

I see OS next week for three month checkup. I haven't seen him since I was in the hospital. I can't wait to thank him.
 
I think a lot of people have varying issues with the lower back after knee surgery. My sciatica acted up quite a bit at first--often requiring pain killer when my knee wasn't that bad. Now I have pain across the top of my knee and at the back of it at the end of the day and I am getting suspicious that although it isn't "classic" sciatic pain, it might still be that as my lower back is also twinging at the same time.
 
Even though I tried to stay 'up' I've been having a few days of depression lately. I should be happy about how well I'm doing after my revision but as it getting closer to the one year anniversary of the original surgery. I've been reading others threads who are one year out and how well they are doing and I feel angry that I'm not there with them. I try to tell myself to just let it go but it keeps coming back into my mind. I think the fact that I haven't been able to do anything about it bothers me. I've tried to talk to my old ortho doc who are saw for years who suggested the original OS who did m TKR but I've not been able to through their office. I've been trying to talk to him through a mutual friend to just let him know how I as treated. No yelling, no lawsuit but just an honest discussion because I always felt cared for by him and since he is one of the founders of that group I would think he would want to know. I guess what I really want is to say they are sorry about the way I was treated, about all the pain I had for the 8 months between surgery and that I was never listened to. Is that really too much to ask for? The last few days I've been so upset I have been in tears about all of this. I try to keep moving ahead but there are days that I am so depressed I just can't get myself to do anything. My house is a mess, I have laundry to do and dishes to wash. Sorry about all this ranting. I will see my HT ( head therapist) after my last PT visit on Thursday. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
 
Hi Marian. I have been struggling a bit lately too. On the 22nd it will be the one year mark for my original TKA and I am sitting here without it waiting for surgery to start the process all over. You have been doing fantastic since your revision....don't let the past issues blurr that for you.[emoji106]


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@PegGar16 When is your next surgery? I'm hoping youve been feeling well. You've gone through quite a lot. It is hard to find those up emotions all the time by we will both get there and then it's time for a :cheers:to both of us as we :walking:walk off into the sunset putting all of this behind us.
 
True. Things will get better. I should be getting a phone call from Mayo today (now that all the financials are taken care of). I can't believe how long it has taken to put this in place, but it is done. Now I just have to get in to see them. It has been a long year for both of us and I am a firm believer the we don't get more than we can handle...the man upstairs has a lot more faith in my abilities than I do at times:) My goal is still to be able to walk well by the end of September when the new grandson arrives.
 
Marian, you certainly have a right to an apology from that first TKR team. And it's understandable that you be depressed for losing so much of your last year due to pain. But, hearing what you've been going through and snapping back as well as you have is helping us first-timers! If you can go through all your trials as well as you have, we certainly should be able to do the same with our normal recoveries. Please know that you have many praying for you. If you need to cry and have a pity party, you've earned it! Go ahead and cleanse your emotions! God bless you!
 
Marian--hope today is a better day!:good-bad:Also hope your daughter gets a good report. It is so frustrating to be treated badly by "professionals." I know how these things can play in your mind and pull you down, and yes, you do deserve an apology. However, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it as to give you one would mean they did something wrong--something they aren't likely, for various reasons, to admit. This is one of those things you just need to leave in God's hands and move forward with you life--don't let them steal anymore of your life!:console2:
 
Got off to a very cloudy start today.:boohoo: I have tried taking something prescribed by my doctor to help me sleep. I usually can't fall asleep even taking it but then I can't wake up in the morning, I looked up side effects and it shows depression and lethargy. I guess I won't be taking that med again. Hopefully it will be out of my system in a few days.

I got my work schedule for the week of June 19th. I will work 30 hours during the week. I am to be there Monday Wednesday and Thursday. That will make for some long days but I will do whatever I can to try to sit at least for a little bit every couple of hours if possible. I'm ambivalent about going back though.
 
@newlybionic...Don't be too rough on yourself and your expectations. I am five months out from a BTKR. My range of motion returned quickly, in spite of major swelling. Everyone was amazed at how quickly I was "recovering." The major challenge that I faced was the pain meds caused me to have extremely depressed breathing (or so I was told at the time), so I have had to go through recovery using only Tylenol for pain, plus elevation and icing. About a month ago, I "hit a wall." My energy levels plummeted. I am a high energy person, so this was hard for me to deal with. I had no idea what was going on. My health care provider has electronic records on line for each patient. I logged in, and looked at my labs before surgery. Everything was fine. There was a category on the menu for hospitalization records. On a whim, I opened that file. Wow! I hit pay dirt! My creative levels were way above normal limits, and my hemoglobin, hematocrit, and iron levels were far below normal limits immediately following surgery. They knew this and released me a day and a half after surgery anyway. I received no follow-up. I immediately made an appointment with my PCP. She retested and the levels had come up somewhat. I was given the standard spiel about eating an iron-rich diet with vitamin C and to drink lots of water. She also added a blood pressure pill, Amlodipine. After two weeks, my legs were so swollen that I could hardly walk. My energy levels fell even further. I contacted my PCP again. She took me off the Amlodipine and replaced it with a low dose of Furosemide, a diuretic. She also reordered the blood tests. My blood levels and iron had fallen back nearly to post surgical levels, but creatine was improving. I added in an iron tablet to my daily routine, and told my doctor. I will repeat blood tests in two weeks. My energy levels are not where I would like them to be, but improving while taking iron. My legs are still swollen, even with elevation and icing, but much better with the Furosemide. My scars are still very red, which I recently read, means the tissue has not healed. Through all of this, and much research, I realize that my breathing problem with the pain medicine was probably an additive result of low blood oxygen and anemia. Someone should have looked at my surgical records and started me on a plan to resolve the test results instead of denying me pain medication due to the symptom of depressed breathing. This has been the most frustrating medical experience that I have personally experienced. No wonder we get the blues some days. Sometimes there is a biological reason for what we are experiencing. We should not be just a medical record number.
 
@GratefulNana I actually did go back and looked at my papers from the hospital and it listed anemia as a diagnosis and I have never been even close to anemic in my life. I'm going to try to get an appointment with my regular doctor.

I think most of my problems may have been related to the sleeping medicine so I'll tossed that one away. I am feeling a little better today.

One more week or so until my daughter has her biopsy back. I'm very hopeful and praying that she is OK.

Had my last PT session. Drove 45 mintestinal each way for 3 exercises which 1 was 10 minutes on a bike (there's a nice shiny one at home) I had to ask them to do a measurement so I could let the OS know next week. I'm at an astounding 127 and 3. I only had flexion of 95 before my revision and never got past 100 after first surgery. I'm just happy I can get around much better. I did 10 minutest on the exercise bike and went 1.5 miles. I just have to find how to get rid of pain in lower leg. I thought maybe shin splints but the massage wasn't helping much. I took extra gabapentin and thought it helped but it didn't. I'll ask OS at my visit. He told me revision wouldn't fix that but with everything else in my knee hurting so much I can live with this. I got this back in July after my first surgery.
 
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