Last Wednesday Mom had knee replacement surgery on her right knee. Typical...she wasn't really looking forward to it, but walking had become so painful she really didn't have any other choice. She's had both knees scoped and her meniscus (cartilage) removed from each side. She was pretty much walking with bone on bone contact. Theoretically, both of her knees need to be replaced but her surgeon will only do one at a time. She was pretty upbeat before surgery and listening to Meatloaf on her ipod Touch pre-op.
Showing off which knee they are supposed to be cutting.
The surgeon's initials indicating which knee is to be operated on.
Dad in the waiting room...reading Goin' Rogue by Sarah Palin. The surgery took about 1.5 hours. Dr. Lash said she had a lot of pathology in the knee and he said it's always amazing to see what people are actually able to walk on once he gets into the joint. She's allergic to Penicillin and Cephalosporins so she was given antibiotic impregnated cement to hold the implant in place.
I spent the first night in the hospital with her. Overall she was in the hospital for four days. She did not handle the narcotic medications well at all and spent a lot of the first night vomiting. She's since been weaned off and is only taking Tylenol. She had a crush on one of her nurses who supposedly was the spitting image of Tim Tebow. Both the doctor and the physical therapist said not being on the high powered pain meds is in her favor and she will most likely heal much faster than people that stay on the pain medications longer. She said she feels pretty good and spends most of the day icing her incision to help keep the swelling down and it also helps to control the pain. Overall healing time is approximately 3 months...and then we may talk about replacing the left side....although she's already said she's not going to do it :).
She Googled 'knee replacement' yesterday and watched the surgery on her laptop.
Here she is one week post op...in pretty good spirits!! Happy to be home!
We hope she'll be running marathons in no time! :)
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