Happy New Knee Year!

1 January 2017: Eight weeks post op left TKR: Eleven months post op right TKR

It is nice to start the new year with two gorgeous new knees.

You will see that the scar on the left knee is healing well and the swelling is reducing. Eleven months on, the right knee is still a bit swollen and it has dark marks (hyper pigmentation) around the scar. The marks are not painful and I am hoping they will gradually fade.

In the last couple of weeks over the festive season I have made superb progress with my left knee:

- I have stopped taking tramadol. It wasn't as easy as I expected and I fear I may have been slightly edgy over Christmas (I think I may have stopped the pills a bit too early). However, I decided that I would like to have a few drinks over Christmas and tramadol and alcohol weren't a great combination for me and made me feel very unwell. So the good news is that I am not taking it any more thank goodness! 

- my walking has increased. Eight weeks after the right knee replacement I was only walking about 2 km. However today (8 weeks after my new left knee) I went for a 3.5km dog walk as well as some general rushing around.

Even better, I have also been able to walk up some gentle hills to revisit places I haven't visited in about 4 years.

I have also been able to stand for longer periods of time - which means I can get up at about 5.30am and go out and water my vegetable garden for about 30 minutes. It is such a nice meditative activity so I am pleased to be able to be in the garden.

Over Christmas, I have also been able to cook meals and have had visitors come and stay. I find I have much more stamina and ease of movement. It is a pleasure to be able to be more normal.

I have also been back to the gym and pool. I still get very tired exercising and I am working on improving my bending and cycling. My knee bends are improving but still not easy and comfortable.

It is great to think that the year ahead will be surgery-free. And my knees will continue to get stronger and more flexible. My plan over the next few weeks is to work on some realistic yet adventurous knee-oriented goals for 2017. I want the year ahead to be the "bees knees".

The road to recovery

18 December 2016: 6 weeks post op Right Knee Replacement

It seems to me that the road to recovery after knee replacement surgery is rather like my driveway - sunny in some patches, shady in others, winding and steep - but ultimately leading to somewhere interesting.

Since the surgery, I have had some gloomy patches with infections and pain (as I reported in previous blogs). But in the last few weeks there have been a lot more bright patches as I have been able to:

- push the pedals on the exercise bike a full rotation (woohoo!)

- drive the car decent distances (100km)

- stand at work and social events and chat to people 

- stand and give a presentation for 45 minutes (actually I did lean on a stool some of the time)

- prepare nice food for my friends 

- go for 2km dog walks and walk nearly 5 kms most days.

And it all feels good. I have also been recalibrating my vision of where the two knee replacements will take me. 

I had been thinking that I wanted to recover to a state that at least as good as before I had surgery. But then I realised that the destination I should be aiming for was more like aiming for a state of fitness and stamina that I had five years ago. And it was quite a change of mindset.

Peter and I were chatting about Fiordland the other night and he said, "when your legs are stronger we could walk the Milford Track". My initial reaction (based on the last five years of thinking was - really? You must be joking!! But then I began thinking about it - and it might just be a realistic possibility. It's an amazingly exciting destination that I hadn't expected or considered for such a long time.

And then last night I met a man who has had two knee replacements - the most recent operation was six months ago. He looked so well and was really pleased with his new knees. He is very active and goes off on adventures with his wife in their bus. And looking at him, I began to think of the possibilities that lie in store for me...

For my regular blog readers, I feel compelled to provide the usual photo update on the knee scar. (You will be pleased that there are no gory  shots in this post).

And the range of motion is also really good - see photo of my bent leg below.

 It is looking good. And with the scar healing well I should be able to go swimming this week.

So, as I say to myself when I am clambering up my rather steep drive way - Onwards and upwards! Let the adventures begin!

A dam strange week!

3 December 2016: One month post op Left knee replacement and ten months post op Right knee replacement

Here in New Zealand it is late spring/ early summer. A time when the temperatures are increasing but the weather is quite temperamental and we can get horrendous winds for a week at a time (100-140km an hour).

In addition to the changeable weather, my post op recovery has had a bit of a mixed report for the last week. Monday I woke up feeling invincible - and ready to go forth and walk long distances. However, our dog Lewis had to be taken to the vet as he had got grass seeds in his eye and foot and he had to have them surgically removed. It was a wild day with gale force winds. After dropping the dog in for surgery, I was getting into the car (rather awkwardly - with my leg balanced against the door for support) when a violent gust of wind hit the door  and concertina-ed my leg into a tight bend. Not an ideal position and it hurt like crazy.  So I didn't feel invincible for long and spent much of the next few days sitting around with ice on my leg trying to get it back to its feel-good state. Lewis recovers much faster than me and he was ready to get up to mischief by Tuesday!!

By Wednesday I was beginning to feel much better and I decided to go for a walk down our drive to our dam. It is about 500m away. When I had my right knee surgery I wasn't able to walk down there until after the fifth week and it was rather an epic journey taking 45 minutes for the round trip. This week I wandered down and back, and had a chat with Peter who was down there gardening, and made the round trip in less than 25 minutes.

The trees we have planted around the dam are looking glorious and the water hole has been covered over with red weed which is great cover for all the frogs living in the water.

One of the other things that happened on Wednesday was that I noticed a suture had started to work its way through the scar tissue of my left knee. This happened with the right knee and last time the surgeon told me not to touch the suture and just let the suture make its way out naturally. So I decided this was all pretty normal. However on Thursday the area around the "piece of string" started to pinken and I went down and talked to the pharmacist about whether I should panic or whether an antiseptic cream would be useful to manage the pinkness.

He thought it would be fine with some antiseptic cream and told me that if it got any worse I should go and see a doctor. Peter was embarrassed as he thought I was making a big deal out of it and he thought I should relax about it. However, by Friday night I thought it was getting angrier and so on Saturday morning, I got Peter to drop me off at the doctors in Hastings while he took Lewis for a walk. By the time I got to the doctors it was looking nastier with pus and blood coming out.

So the doctor dug around in the scar and pulled out the suture end and cut it off with a scalpel. It was all rather gruesome. And I am back again on a higher dose of antibiotics than I took two weeks ago. He confirmed that I hadn't been over reacting and that I needed to take action to make sure the infection didn't get worse and or affect my implant.

So - in summary - I can walk further and more confidently now than I could after the previous surgery. I can sleep well. I have really needed the painkillers this week - so haven't been able to wind back on the pills - and in fact I am taking more pills - taking a second course of antibiotics that upset my stomach. Because of the risk of wound infection I can't get back swimming until the scar heals.

I am really hoping next week is more straight forward and I can get out and spend time in my vegetable garden and get back to watch frogs by the dam.