Good luck Bill, watch out for the nurses though..... 8) http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/2015/06/14/nurse-strips-clothes-beats-patient-police-say/71215884/
Good luck Bill. Having severed one quadricep and severely tearing the other as you know I can relate all too well to being laid up in a recuperative state ( hate it ) I agree that it's a relief to get to the rehab phase knowing you're on the way back to full use. Godspeed on that....
Bill, I'm hoping to get both done at one sitting. I will see what the guy says. I have an appointment on July 2.
Both knee's, one surgery, one anesthesia, one rehab, that all seems to make sense. What is the determining factor as to whether or not you can do both. How is the rehab, same amount of time or slightly longer? I'll bet your arms and shoulders need to be in good shape. As I said my observation from seeing my patients increasingly getting these done, both hips and knee's...the hip people seem to be up and going sooner.
I've known two people (man and woman) who had both knees done at the same time. In both cases, there was a devoted spouse who did everything necessary to help the patient until he and she could get up and going on their own.
I had a friend have both done last December. He said they got him up right away. He did all his rehab as required and was golfing by April. Golfing well, I might add. He was supposed to have them done the previous year but he went in for his pre-op physical and came out of it with a triple coronary artery bypass. Had to wait an extra year for his knees. Came back from the open heart and was runner-up in our club's member-guest last year.
At the time I had my knee done, my other knee was not at that point that it needed to be replaced. I had an unusually quick recovery and was driving and getting around well after 3 weeks. I had the surgery on Oct. 31 and was golfing in Mexico in Jan. I can see the advantage of getting it over with all at once if you need both replaced. If you have a difficult time recovering from a single replacement, you'll probably do anything to avoid the second.
That's what I hear. Plus just the inconvenience of going through the whole thing again. Plus I don't do the patient role well.
Stu I'm not sure just how much this helped but for a year prior to my operation, I had been swimming for exercise. Part of my routine was to do deep knee bends in the pool and that graduated to bending with jumps. 4 days post op I had 113 degrees flexion in the knee. The therapist was impressed.
Thanks, Gip...swimming is my primary form of exercise, but I seem to be able to get to the pool more often in the winter...too much other stuff going on right now...mostly involving water hazards. I'll try the kneebends.
Today was pretty much a great day for me. I finally got in to see my therapist that will be working with me until the therapy is over. And things went really well, I now understand some things better, why to do them and how it works. I think I made more progress on this one day than all the rest until now. I am still on a target date that is longer than I first expected, but that's ok as long as I can see the concrete results.
Good news, Bill. It would seem to me that attitude is most important in the recovery process. Your attitude is positive and determined. You'll be fine.
Glad to hear your attitude sound so positive as that is probably one of the biggest keys to a successful recovery and therapy result. Way to go Bill.
Thanks for all the great comments, they help. I think the fact that both times I have had something like this I have a target that I want to achieve to live the way I want. Several years ago with the Quad ligament it was to get back to bowling by the fall leagues. This time it's a two parter, be able to take the trip in the whole month of October. The second is to be able to return to bowling when the trip is finished. My therapists believes I will be able to do both. I am still having some problems focusing with some of the meds I am taking. It shows up in some of these notes with mistakes I make that I didn't know about at the time..
I had a real scare yesterday morning and ended up at the emergency room in an ambulance. I thought I may have had a stroke but it turns out to be vertigo. Not a small thing but much better than a stroke. I see the doctor who did the knee tomorrow and hope to see my general doctor also. Sometimes life throws you some curves. Interesting conversation on the both knees at once or not. The doctor here in NC wouldn't do both my wife at the same time and it worked out really well for her doing them basically one right after the other. Her and her sister are in front of our tv right now doing a 3 mile walking tape they have been doing very regularly. I hope my program gets back on track, I see the therapist Tuesday.
Bill, my wife and a good friend both have issues with vertigo. If this is the first time it's happened to you, from here on in, you'll understand it when it happens. Doesn't make it any easier, but at least you won't feel like you did this time.
Knee <t>Bill,<br/> <br/> I work in home health and see a fair amount of knee patients after their surgery. It's pretty usual for most surgeons not to do both knees at same time. for one thing many patients have a lot of pain post-op with knees and secondly your going to need what ever mobility the other knee will give you while your healing. Doing both knees at the same time sets you up for a lot of complications. Just FYI. I'm not a DR but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.</t>