As most of you are aware, I got myself a brand-new bionic BioMet knee last Monday. Even though I’m not a morning person, I did think a reporting time to the hospital of 1:50 p.m. was a bit much, so Lapin Blanc** and I were our usual obsessively early selves. As it turns out, we got to go in early because the person ahead of me got their surgery postponed because of a pimple on their knee. Apparently they weren’t kidding when they said my knee had to be completely un-nicked and unscathed!
The anesthesiologist offered me a whole smorgasbord of choices, and I picked a combination of a spinal and epidural morphine. Which I enjoyed during surgery, since I was able at one point to wake up a bit and hear the sawing and hammering and whatnot that was going on (as the anesthesiologist had warned me would happen – but the annoying man put me right back out before I could really figure out where in the surgery we were, darn him!), I regretted it all night since because of this particular variety of long-acting morphine, which they’ve only been using a couple weeks, I had to sleep with not only an IV with fluids and antibiotics, my blood gathered during surgery being washed and returned by another IV, and a Foley catheter, but also a finger pulse monitor, several heart leads, and a blood pressure cuff that went off automatically every 20 minutes all night long. I was a thing of beauty indeed!
Starting the next morning and every morning thereafter, they would come and pry me out of bed at 6:30. After waking me up regularly through the night to take various vitals, draw blood, etc., ruining what little sleep I was able to get. And why would they get me up at 6:30? To sit in a chair! They wouldn’t even bring me coffee or breakfast for an hour, the bastiges! Then at 8:30 we’d go down to the main PT room for group physical therapy, which they cutely called Joint Camp (I need that pukey smiley, damn it!), and be assisted by our family member, cutely called our coach, through our therapy. Which took nearly two hours to start with (I’m down to just under an hour now, plus 20 minutes icing). We’d repeat this at 12:30 p.m. So it was nearly four hours a day of excruciating PT starting less than 12 hours after major surgery. What idiot dreamed up THIS program? They’d give us good drugs, but I learned that good drugs don’t do you any good if you do painful enough exercise to overcome their beneficial effects. It’s only a week later than I’m finally starting to be able to do a couple of the worst exercises without excruciating pain – I’d say it’s down to agonizing now. Lucky me. :dubious: We’d have volunteers in there who’d gotten new joints who assured us that it really works and we’ll soon have pain-free functional knees, but I’m at the point where (a) I’ll believe it ONLY when it happens to me, and (b) I want it to happen NOW!!
Anyway, other than getting permission to use crutches rather than a walker because our dogs already know to give me a wide berth on crutches, not much else happened in the hospital. Except the one day I was a BAD GIRL – I had the nerve to lie down in the middle of the afternoon after the second therapy session and before I had to take my four (!!) 500-yard (!!!) walks that evening and try to rest for an hour! How could I break the rules so egregiously? Yeah, right, whatever. I didn’t get up till I was ready anyway. 
After a couple of days, my incision started looking pretty good. This is my view of the incision, and (Warning: Gross Photo Ahead!) this is Lapin Blanc’s view. Even after a week, it’s still really swollen; here’s a shot (wearing my beautiful white surgical stockings, lucky me) of my two knees showing the difference between the two knees. All I can say is I sure hope the swelling settles down pretty soon; I am sick of it! The staples won’t come out till, at the earliest, my next doctor visit on the 13th. And I can’t shower till the incision stops seeping. Right now it’s only seeping about 1/4 tsp of pale yellow clear goo a day, which ain’t much, but it’s still enough that I can’t take a shower. stomps foot I WANT a shower NOW, dammit!
At this point, I’m told it’ll be another week or so before my therapy stops hurting so darned much (the home variety, that is – the professional variety is gonna stop hurting tomorrow Or. Else.), and then I should make much more rapid progress. In the meantime, I have a therapy cat – Emily sits on a pillow next to me every time I do my therapy and lets me pet her through the most painful exercises. She’s very sweet and happy to do it, and obviously does it because she loves me so much, but she’s not real fondof getting her picture taken. (Yeah, this was an excuse to take lots of photos of Emily. So sue me!)
If you’ve read this far and seen the pictures of my incision without tossing your cookies, my congratulations. If anyone has a magic wand they can lend me to wave and make it all better immediately, that would be even better, obviously! At this point I’m still not sure I’m glad I did this whole thing, although when I’m able to walk a mile without pain, I just might. Since we’re going to New Orleans in April for the French Quarter Festival, walking would definitely be useful!
So that’s the tale of how I changed from Mama Tigs to Bionic Tigs. Rosie, you’re next for the Bionic Knee Club!
**I’m upgrading Palebunny’s nick to Lapin Blanc because she’s been such a super assistant, she deserves a better nick!
