Day Seventeen. AM

Neighborhood potluck in Tyler, Minnesota

Deviled eggs (top left in specific deviled egg tray) are popular in Tyler.

 I figured it was about time for a picture or two.  And with my appetite coming back........

Since this blog is supposed to be an honest day to day account of what it is like to prepare for and get new knees, I feel like have to continue complaining if that's part of the day to day even though it could get tiresome for readers with good knees.  Sorry.

I feel like I should should warn you with a headline if there is a complaint coming up but my definition of a complaint could be different than yours.  More than likely,  something you would interpret as a complaint, I would not.

Whatever.
Since the last couple of nights have been sleepless for the most part, I took a 12 hour time-released pain med last night before bed.  I woke up a ton but getting back to sleep was a breeze.  (I don't feel like that's a complaint even though it started out sounding like it was going to be).  This morning around 7 when I got up for good (complaint coming), I couldn't imagine being more sore and stiff (and cold which is probably unrelated but still a complaint).  I took a pain med, iced both knees, had Vince build me a fire and in no time there was improvement in all categories.

OK.  Time for my version of PT which I hope does more good than harm.  I say that because I feel like I don't really know.  Have the last sleepless nights been because I do too much PT?  Not enough?  or is it unrelated?  Do my therapists have to think more outside the box when it comes to me?  Why do I feel like I'm different?  (maybe because I usually am?).  I feel so helpless.

I feel like I got some complaining out of my system right there.

Day Twelve

Sleeping was OK.  Since I started taking the ms contin I don't dread bed anymore.

This morning I was pretty stiff (which, as it turns out is pretty normal...dah) and the baker cyst things were bumming me out so I felt like I should take the day off at least until PT got here.

The physical therapist came.  Cringing, when she pulled out her calipers, I wasn't looking forward to knowing how little progress in flexion I had made since the last time I'd seen her.

Measurements:
Sitting on the bed using my hamstrings to hold the knee angle = Left/86 degrees; Right/85 degrees.
Sitting on a metal kitchen chair = Left/7-98 (last time 95) degrees; Right/5-101 (last time 96) degrees.
She remembers the extensions being in the teens last time but I didn't write it down.  So anyway....not great but better.  I have this discouraging piece of paper that I got in the hospital and seems to be in my face no matter where I'm sitting,  that says at the 4 week mark I should be 0-120.  (the low number is how many degrees my knee is up off the table when the legs are out straight in front of me and the big number is how many degrees my knees bend...without assistance in this case.

Now for the best part....I got on my bike.  At first there was no way I could do a complete pedal stroke, (Dad told me I should raise the seat:))but later, if I had one pedal under a heel with my toes pointed I could jerkily go around.  I can't imagine any better way of stretching and flexing.   I asked her about using the rowing machine and as I was going into my plan of hanging a trapeze thing from the ceiling in order to get on it (since it is so low). she suggested I wait a week.

Anyway, it was good to get an outside perspective and some concrete measurements because I am progressing even though I was sure I was sliding backwards.

Dug out some compression tube sox to help control swelling.  The inside of my left knee can go up to a 9 on the pain scale at times....but just for a couple of minutes.

Now if I can just figure out an easy way to gain ten pounds.

Day Five

I was complaining about my back today.  I try to make my complaints different every day to keep them interesting.  Friends George and Elinor picked up on the new complaint and came knocking on the door with a huge fuzzy triangular back pillow that velcros into millions of nifty comfortable positions.

The physical therapist came today for the first time.  I was doing some of the exercises right.  From what I could tell, if an exercise is comfortable, it's wrong.  The flexion in the right knee was 85 degrees.  The flexion in the left knee was 85 degrees.  It may have been 90 but I think that was when the PT was pushing on it.  Seems like that would make it a fake number?  In any case, I can't imagine it will ever be more than that. 

Miserable as this whole rehab ordeal is I know if I had to do it over,  I would do both knees again. 

Forty-One Days

Less than 6 weeks !  yay.   Six more weeks of my legs continuing to atrophy.

There used to me a muscle there on the outside.

So Saturday I got rescued by a snowmobile and today I skied 2:20...most of it, north of here in the hills.  I was never anywhere I could've gotten stranded.

No pain to speak of and just 1/2 of a meloxicam.  Who knows?  I have a theory.  My knee has been swollen so long and so hard that it seems like things are getting used to being stretched...therefore it's not as painful.

Got a hydrocodone refill (5/325s).  Think I'll try just taking one before bed if I need it....none during the day unless I have an explosion.  I seem to be able to ski with the meloxicam.  I dread going to bed.  Tossing and turning like I do makes the nights so long.

My rented Ford Focus got stuck at the end of the driveway  today with me in it.  I put all of the groceries in my backpack and crutched up the driveway, traded one crutch for a snow shovel, got some ashes and crutched/snowshoveled back to the car.  A few ashes and what seemed like enough shoveling did nothing.  I was sure I'd drive right out.  Finally the neighbors that were watching through their window 10 feet away came out to help and a half hour later I was driving out of the hole we'd dug.  (Thank you neighbors!)  

THEN my knee hurt.

Forty-Seven Days

Did 35 minutes of upper body rowing while watching some 'Reno 911'.  Skied 1:35 in 35 degrees after a night of rain.  Took 1/2 of a vike before I went out but not even sure I had to.  The knee is still very swollen, firm and ugly.  Because the general knee swelling and huge baker cyst,  it is impossible to straighten my leg. I have to walk slowly and with a limp.  Nice.

It was very damp last night and this morning but I had very little pain.  Even though my knee is firm (it USED TO jiggle when I tapped it but now it doesn't really move), it seems to be less swollen.  I did ice and took a half of meloxicam today.


Somedays I feel like something as specific as a knee replacement couldn't possibly fix all of the wacky knee things I have going on (firmness, baker cyst, limping) and today was one of those days.

Forty-Eight Days

Did my pain management and skied 1:20 south along the river.  Heaven.  Do I sound like a broken record?  I was actually hoping to get to the point where I sounded like a broken record....i.e. find a routine that worked.  So now I know how I can get away with a little ski, I rented a car so I'm not stranded here on the couch while Vince is in school 9 hours a day and my couch nest is right where I want it...filled with good books, a writing pad and knitting.  Life is good.

I still have pain but it is tolerable.  A week ago I didn't know how I would make it to March 12.
The knee is still very swollen.  I googled 'swollen knee + coagulated blood' and got a couple articles.  One where the guy died and the other where they amputated the leg.   Then I notice the articles were from 1880.

Fifty-One Days

Took a 1/2 vicoden** and 1/2 meloxicam an hour before I went out for a ski*.  I headed north from the house which meant there would be a few steep-ish downhills on the way back home.   I'd been avoiding this route due to fairly shitty conditions but the new snow last night should make it more-than-likely doable.  Half way around the loop I was not totally surprised when I felt my knee swelling so I headed home which was the same distance either way. :)  I was out 1:50.  It was delicious.  Sunny, 15 degrees and new snow.  Yum.
I iced when I got home and was very comfortable.  Comfortable enough to do 20 minutes of upper body on the rowing machine and go out again flat along the river for 1:10... with no more medication.  Now, showered and reclined on the couch, I am pretty much pain free.  High pressure*** again but I think the meloxicam may be working for me.
I've 'always' been passionate about getting some exercise everyday and having the surgery coming up, in the spirit of a quicker recovery, I'm even more determined to get out everyday.
*when I mention skiing, it is always Nordic skiing.
**all the books say that after surgery, for PT, the patient should take a pain killer in order to get the most out of the PT session.  Seemed like that same protocol should work for skiing and I want to go into the surgery being as fit as possible.
***I like to think weather has an effect on my arthritis even though I know it probably doesn't.