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TKR Vickie's Knee Recovery

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Cathy, I fired the therapist this morning! He called to cancel the therapy time and something in me just came un-glued when I heard his voice. I told him that there wasn't any reason to come today because my knee was so stiff from his pushing me that I couldn't even bend it. I told him that I was tired of him shouting at me and telling me that if I didnt have such a low pain tolerance level that I would be able to bend the knee. He said that wasn't really true and I was crying during PT because I was frustrated that I wasn't getting the bend I needed. I told him that he had to admit that when I told him the doctor was not concerned with the bend because it would come when the swelling went down that he said, "Who do you trust me or your doctor?" He said that if I didn't keep bending it, I would just get stiffer. I then told him that he does not have a doctorate nor has he had a knee replacement, so he has no idea what my pain tolerance is. He said that he was sorry that I felt that way and knew he couldn't change my mind. I asked him to release me from in-patient treatment that I would no longer tolerate having him yell at me in my own home.....My only regret is that I didn't change therapists two weeks ago and waited for the last day to do something......I have definitely learned something from this!
 
Cathy, that's so great that you slept all night. Your body must have been exhausted to not wake you and complain about the stiffness. I guess we just have to conquer one thing at a time....
 
Good for you firing him what a idiot. Did you report him to the agency? Hopefully your out patient will be better. Do you already have an appt there?
Cathy
 
I haven't done an official report. I will let my doctor's office know what happened when I see them next week....My outpatient starts at 10:00 on March 11. They told me to expect about a 1-1/2 to 2 hour appointment for getting paperwork and initial assessment done. I also have a doctor's appointment that day. I'll bet that I will be worn out. Maybe I will sleep that night....Re the healthcare worker and your Mom. My Mom had lymphoma and was under hospice care. Her healthcare nurse asked her what she was going to do with all of her nice things when she wasn't here anymore. Needless to say, my Mom was devastated. When I reported that, the nurse said that it wasn't true, that my Mom misunderstood because of her pain meds. She was never allowed in my Mom's room again.
 
Wow that was rude. I fired my moms hospice and hired another one. The first one was awful. My mom when she found out she had ALS she started giving all her stuff away. I had to tell to stop it. I went down there and her small couch was gone. I said mom where is the couch she said I gave it to the condo gardener. Ugh ! Same with her clothes needless to say we had to buy more. Lol
Cathy
 
Hi Vickie,
How are you I went to Pt and whiled it was painful I got 11O degrees on my own and 118 with my PT. Then I got to ride the bike for 4 minutes. It was painful the first few pedals but got easier. He know I am so eager to get back to the gym so he said 10 mins at gym but no more right now.
You will probably have better results with your outside PT. it did hurt with him bending my leg but pain is only temporary right? I am stiff and sore now though. How did the rest of your day go?
 
Hiya poof! Just FYI, I couldn't do my exercises three times a day most of the time. I stil don't do some of them three times a day! I think quality is better than quantity personally. If your gut is telling you NO, listen to yourself. One set of exercises isn't going to make or break you. Or if you do three times a day, do fewer of each in the last set. Just a thought! :)
 
I usually do the exercises once a day and then randomly bend or flex my knee if I am sitting down. Leg lifts are the worse!
Cathy
 
Day 23: The In-home PT is finished and out patient will begin on March 11. That will be the one month mark for me. Before the surgery, I would have thought that I would have been much further along than I actually am. Were my expectations realistic? I don't think so. I thought that at this point I would be riding my stationary bike every day for several minutes. In reality, I am unable to make a complete rotation and just rock it back and forth. I am able to do leg lifts without any problem at all. My knee is pretty straight except for the area that is still swollen and just cannot go further at this point. I am only able to bend to 92 degrees, so I can get in and out of cars ok, but it is still difficult to sit in a chair with my knee hanging down at a bent position.....Pain management: I can definitely see some improvement here. Yes, I am still on pain meds. I have different kinds of pains all the time. Yesterday, it was muscle spasms running from hip to calf. It woke me up at 1:30 a.m. and then again at 4:30 a.m. However, when I look back to week 2 and the amount of pain that I experienced, there is absolutely no comparison. Crying Jags: Those are also better, but I still have them. My OS told me to just get a giant box of tissues and cry whenever I wanted. Just to let it out......Do I regret it: I've thought about this off and on. Once you make an informed decision, then there really is no point in wishing you had done something else. All of the reasons for wanting this replacement are still there. It's just the whiny, scared person inside that wants to escape the pain and work that goes along with it......Posting this thread: I have no idea whether anyone else has found anything useful in it, but it really helps me to be able to look back and see that I am getting better. I would suggest that you make a thread for yourself and track your progress. I was going to write it in a journal, but when I found you guys, this was so much better. I can get advice from others, help when I just can't seem to make it on my own and have become friends with several people that I know that I would be friends with if we lived closer to each other. Thanks to all of you for allowing me to just keep on working at this one day at a time, with your help! Vickie
 
Cathy, your progress is amazing! I am so jealous of your bike riding endurance! :bicycle1: I can't wait for that to be me too. Keep telling me about your progress, it makes me feel so hopeful!......I didn't get a lot of sleep last night because of muscle spasms, but I feel good this morning. Yesterday I tried vacuuming our wooden floors and that probably wasn't my best idea this week. The spasms were probably a result of that....I'm going to try and get some stretching exercises done now. Let me know how you are doing today. Vickie
 
Hi Vickie,
Did your Dr give you a muscle,relaxer ? I found that very helpful. You are doing greats too! Not everyone heals at the same rate. My friend at the gym who is 10 years older than me was back on the bike at 2 weeks after his replacement. He said oh the replacement is no bog deal. Now I beg to differ,on that one it is a huge deal and there is no way I could have been back there a week ago...
I woke up at 1230 in,pain took meds and again at 630 terrible pain and took a pill. Going to have my hubby take me to the gym in a bit and try,doing the bike again and some upper body weights.
I read and it seems most people are on pain meds even if it is just at night for months. When I am sitting down I try and bend my knee to the point it is uncomfortable and keep it there as long as I can stand it then straighten it and do the same thing a few More times each time trying to go a little farther. That might help you get some bend back.
Cathy
 
Hi Cathy, I am taking a muscle relaxer and it usually helps, but last night was just one of those nights. I was up a lot too last night and at 4:30 a.m. I just gave up and got out of the bed. Thanks for the advice on the knee bending. I tend to sit way too much with my knee propped up. (That's probably why I can straighten It so well). On the other hand, that's also probably the reason it doesn't bend. I had my husband remove the recliner from the living room this morning so that I would be forced to let it hang down more in my regular non-reclining chair. I do have a foot stool and can prop it up to rest it. Wow, it is really uncomfortable hanging down, so I guess that's an indicator of how much I need to do it.....I guess you know someone now that has just breezed through the TKR. Was that his first replacement surgery?....I put a skateboard under the kitchen table this morning and moved my leg back and forth on it while I was typing my thread update. That also felt pretty yucky, but not a pain that made me cry....My favorite stretching exercise is sitting on the bench swing that we have out back and letting my new knee be in charge of the rocking movement. It seems to stretch out just a little bit each time I do it. Don't really know if this is a good exercise or not. I haven't heard anyone say that they have tried it.....Thanks again for your encouragement. I think that I'm needing that today. Vickie.
 
I think bench swing is a great idea! No this was his first replacement but he has had other knee surgeries one where he got a huge infection.. I think some people just breeze right through. Not me. This is the third surgery in 3 years for me and by far the worse. I had a hysterectomy 2 years ago and not near as much pain. And a breast lift/augmentation last year I was driving after 2 weeks. I think it is going to hurt to get back to the new normal! But we can do it!
 
I just thought about a small procedure that I had in 2011....I had to have my big toenail completely removed. It took 8 weeks for that little sucker to heal! The podiatrist told me that it would be a 6-8 week process. So that leads me to the obvious thought of how I can possibly think that I would breeze thru this quickly when it took a silly toenail 8 weeks to heal? It makes me laugh just thinking how crazy I am to keep worrying about healing quickly. BTW....removing a toenail is gross!
 
3 surgeries in 3 years. That's a lot, but you bounce back well. Maybe you can take next year off and just enjoy it!
 
I don't plan on anything for a while! I wasn't planning on this right now but my back hurt so bad from my knee being bad.. My hysterectomy they had to cut me open so that was a big surgery also.
Well went to gym couldn't get the petal around for about 3 or 4 min had to work at it.. Definatly was not easy! Now icing my knee it is very sore. But it was nice to be back at the gym.. How are you doing today?
Cathy
 
Maybe you just needed a rest day in between the bike riding to let your knee rest a little.....I feel like I've had a really good rest afternoon. At noon, my husband dropped our 3 dogs off at the groomers, so I had the house all to myself. I turned the ringer off of the phones, went into the bedroom and put the tv on a droning movie and laid down. Just when I was about to give up and get out of the bed I must have fallen asleep. I took about a 1-1/2 hour nap, so it made up for some of last nights lack of sleep. Now I'm still lying here trying to get my knee in the mood to get up and get some stuff done....I have heard that a hysterectomy is a big surgery to recover from. I'm sorry that you have had to go thru all of these surgeries. I'm hoping that your health is really going to improve now. You seem super motivated to get well, so I'm sure that you are going to have a very good outcome. Won't it be great when we are all back out there enjoying our lives again? You know, we are all lucky to be able to get this taken care of. We don't "feel" very lucky right now, but eventually we will. As soon as I think that I'm truly going to recover, then I'm going to get busy deciding where to visit and get some reservations made. I'm still a little afraid to commit right now because it still feels like recovery is a ways off. It's that crazy up and down ride!....Well, lets hope that we get some sleep tonight. If not, send me a msg, I may be awake too. Vickie
 
Hi ladies. I just found this thread, and read thru it. I had both knees replaced on jan 14, 2013. I laughed as I read your posts, because it was exactly what I went thru :). I am still having sleep problems, it at least I am finally getting a little sleep! Due to some pretty amazing snowstorms that came a week apart, my in home PT was extended. But that ended today ....monday i start output PT. I feel my progress is going good tho and hope not to do PT for long. I can extend to zero, and my flexion is 130 in the left knee, 126 in the right. But pain is still an issue, however..I didn't realize pain was the problem. Silly me.. I thought I was far enough out I was only "uncomfortable" so just took Aleve. The I found myself getting NO sleep, and crying non stop. Found out I was not listening to my body ...it was telling me I hurt. I was not icing but once a day.. So a word of advice: Ice, ice, ice..and don't stop pain pills until dr gives ok.

Happy healing!
 
Hi Sandi! Congratulations on your great recovery! It's good that you figured out that you needed some pain pills so that you can rest....BTW I've done a ton of crying in the last 3 weeks. It seems better now, but it doesn't take a lot to get me started. Now I seem extra sensitive to everything said to me. That's probably the lack of sleep just wearing me down.....This week I got all upset because I heard my husband "sigh" when I got up with pain in the middle of the night. First of all, if he did sigh, then he has every right too. He has slept about 50% of his normal amount since this whole thing started. Anyway, I was just crazy telling him that I couldn't help getting up in the middle of the night and why was he "sighing" at me? He had no idea what I was even talking about. Ok...I'm getting a little nutty, but at least I'm aware of it! :rolleyes:
 
Lauramacky said:
Hiya poof! Just FYI, I couldn't do my exercises three times a day most of the time. I stil don't do some of them three times a day! I think quality is better than quantity personally. If your gut is telling you NO, listen to yourself. One set of exercises isn't going to make or break you. Or if you do three times a day, do fewer of each in the last set. Just a thought! :)
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Hi Laura, how have you been doing? Vickie
 
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