Undergoing knee surgery this week -- how to prepare?

In My Humble Opinion
1

On Thursday I’m undergoing ACL reconstruction surgery on my knee. I’ve been spending the weekend doing things to prepare, and it’s finally dawned on me that there are probably plenty of people on the SDMB who could give advice on what stupid little things will trip me up after I’m on crutches. I’m not looking for medical advice here, but more stuff along the lines of “stock up on easy-to-cook meals”.

Some details about my situation:

  • I’ll be having the ACL reconstruction done but no surgery on the meniscus is anticipated. As I understand it, this means that I can expect to be on crutches for a minimum of two weeks after the surgery, and it will probably be longer.

  • It’s a day surgery, so I’ll be in and out of the hospital in the same day and recovering from home.

  • I live alone, but my mother will be staying with me for the first week and my sister lives in the same building, so I won’t be completely on my own.

  • I don’t own a car, which is probably going to make life more difficult than it really needed to be

  • There’s a washer and dryer just down the hall from me
    I’m working on filling my freezer up with leftovers and making sure that my apartment is spotless, as I expect I won’t be able to do much by way of cooking or cleaning for the next while. I’m sure that there’s other things that I’ll never think of taking care of before the surgery, so if anybody has any advice, that would be great.

2

I can’t speak to that specific surgery, but as long as you make sure the house is clean (so you won’t trip over anything), you’ve done a few weeks worth of shopping and you’ve ‘nested’ (everything is about an arms reach from wherever you plan to spend the first few days)…the next most important thing, honestly, is to get the DVR filled up with TV shows and movies and have a few books ready to go. After my shoulder surgery I went back to work a few days later, more than anything, because I was bored out of my skull. Granted, I could walk (but driving was still difficult).

Once you get the hang of the crutches, you’ll be fine. WRT stairs, don’t be scared to sit down and go up/down them on your butt the first couple of times. Not everyone can go up and down them right off the bat. Then there’s people like my sister who are just physically to small to hold both crutches in the same hand so she’d launch them down ahead of her. She gave us all a heart attack the first time she did that, we thought she fell.

Again, my surgery wasn’t an ACL and I don’t know what the post-op is like for that one, but I think you may find that you don’t need your mom living with you for more than 24 (or 48) hours, especially with a sister in the building. Once you can get around, it’s really the boredom that kills you. I assume you’re going to have a CPM, spending hours upon hours in that gets very old. Like I said, have some movies and books ready to go.

3

Figure out how you are going to maneuver the bathroom. You won’t be able to bend your surgical knee so you’ll have to be able to sit with it sticking out. Also, think about hand-holds to get up and down. Towel bars are not meant to support a person, as my partner found out after his knee surgery.

4

Do as much laundry as possible before the surgery.

Also, if you have pets, buy lots of pet food and litter (if needed), bedding, etc.

5

Pick up all banana peels from the floor.

6

Due to various injuries/surgeries, I’ve spent over a year of my life on crutches. They suck.

Be sure to have them properly adjusted for your height. When “walking” your weight should not be on your armpits, instead you should support yourself with your hands. Otherwise you’ll end up with bruised pits.

For stairs, I always found two crutches in one hand and the other hand on the railing was the way to go.

Depending on your floors, an office chair can be a great thing.

7

After my first knee surgery, I went to stay with my Mom to recuperate. I lasted about 24 hours before I wanted to go home. I love my Mom, but I after three days in hospital, I didn’t want to be fussed over, I just wanted to be left alone.

I was non-weight bearing on that leg, and not allowed to drive, so the biggest hurdles for me were groceries, which I hadn’t had a chance to stock up on, and getting to the pharmacy to get my pain meds, which I absolutely needed. As others have said, boredom, too, since it took a lot of effort to go anywhere. Getting to physio on transit was a challenge, but doable.

Last knee injury, ACL tear, more recently, was a bigger challenge in that I had to negotiate stairs to get to my bathroom and getting in and out of the tub to shower was difficult and awkward. I ended up showering with a crutch in the tub with me for balance. Up side is that I had all day to get things done. I watched a lot of tv and did a lot of knitting in the five weeks I was off work. Plus slept and read a lot.

I wish I’d had surgery - without it, it was almost a year to recover and feel normal again.

Good luck with your surgery. What are they telling you about recovery times and return to functionality?

8

Tons of good suggestions here. When I had my knee done there was only one thing I forgot to do. I forgot to position the furniture with enough room around it for me to navigate my casted leg through the room. If I were to do it again, I’d have moved my coffee table to one side of the room and left a clear shot through the living room.

I have 3 big dogs, so I arranged to have one of the neighborhood teens come in and walk them twice a day. I have very active dogs who tend to get destructive if they are bored, so that was a genius idea. They knew exactly when to expect her and would stand by the front door, ready to go!

It’s definitely ok - and easier - to scoot up and down the stairs on your backside. Stairs on crutches can be scary.

9

Trim your toenails before surgery.

10

Get some empty gateraid bottles to pee in for the first few days. Its gross but it will save lots of pain.

11

These days crutches are not the only game in town. I see more and more people opting for these. If you are able to access your house from the ground floor, this seems like a good option.

12

I had ACL reconstruction 5 years ago. Get ready to not move for a while. Before surgery, my doctor recommended taking two weeks off work. I planned on only taking one because I did not have a physically demanding job at all. After that one week, I realized I still felt pretty crappy.

Hard to remember, but I think I was on crutches for close to four weeks.

It’s great that your mom will be around. That first week is a bitch. Things to prepare:

  • Everything you could ever want needs to be within reach from your bed. Books, tv remote, laptop, whatever. Put them on the nightstand now. You ain’t moving even an inch for 24 hours.
  • Might as well get your bed ready. Extra pillows to prop up that leg.
  • Get one of those IceMan machines if possible. Getting swelling down and starting rehab ASAP is key to regaining mobility and strength. The longer you’re immobile, the more your muscles atrophy and that SUCKS.

You’ve probably already decided so can I ask what you’re using to replace the ACL? Your own hamstring or cadaver part? I used a cadaver part and I would probably not recommend that even thought it’s supposedly a faster recovery time. I feel like my doctor gave me some bad advice leading up to my eventual surgery.

13

Take your pain meds exactly as prescribed, not late, and don’t miss any doses.

It’s a LOT easier for you and your doctors to stay ahead of pain than it is to bash it back down if you start feeling pain because you didn’t take your meds like they suggest.

Otherwise, I’d say that the Gatorade bottle idea isn’t a terrible one if you live by yourself, and I’d probably make sure that you have a comfortable chair/couch and some sort of footrest; you’ll be sitting there chilling for a while. Don’t make any plans that require much thought for about a week; the pain meds and general surgical aftermath isn’t going to leave you in much of a state to do anything useful.

(so saith the guy with a MCL repair in high school and a patellar tendon rupture repair in 2014.)

14

Been there, done that, multiple times. Here are my things I learned:

  1. Get a plastic stool or milk crate or something to sit on in the shower (I think you’ll get the OK to shower after four days or so. but you won’t want to stand on a slippery bathtub one-footed).

  2. You might think that canned soup is a great easy-to-prepare meal for a semi-invalid. And you’d be right, as far as that goes. BUT soup is not a great meal to try and carry anywhere when you’re on crutches. Keep to nice sticky, gloppy food that can stay on a plate that’s being tilted 40 degrees by a hand that’s trying to carry a plate AND a crutch (or food that’s OK being dropped).

  3. Post-surgery, when you feel a little queasy because of the pain meds, it’s better to eat something to settle your stomach than to not eat and get even more upset stomach.

  4. I needed most of the full two weeks, mostly because I didn’t sleep very well – the pain was just enough to regularly wake me up, and make me too tired to really do any work.

  5. So, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be out of it, between the drugs (ah…) and possibly not sleeping. Don’t plan on any high-paced major life decisions.

  6. If you can get a continuous passive motion machine, do it. Kind of annoying doing your time on it right after surgery, but a lot easier than pushing through scar tissue later.

15

You’ve received lots of good advice. I’d add:

  1. If you have access to crutches right now, do a test-drive. Hobble your way through the apartment with the crutches. Move everything several inches farther out of the path than you think you need. If you have a coffee table, move it out of the middle of the room - side tables will be useful to you, the coffee table will just be in the way. Put away area rugs for now.

  2. Do a similar test run in the bathroom. Move the extraneous stuff that might get in your way or trip you up. If you don’t have grab bars in the loo, put something sturdy in there to help yourself manage things with one leg extended and one useful leg. (Tony’s had lots of surgery. We have a raised potty chair that can be placed over the throne, with raised arms. Similar to this, just remove the bowl and set it over the toilet. In a pinch, it can be used as a seat in the shower, but I finally got a transfer chair for that.)

  3. Get some kind of cross-body bag - anything that you can sling across your body (purse, messenger bag, etc.) Fill it with the essential stuff: cell phone and spare charger, a bottle of water, tissues, medicines, a book, a couple of paper towels and plastic spoons and forks. When you’re heading from bed to office, or kitchen to bedroom, sling that bag over your shoulder before making the trek. Nothing is quite as discouraging as getting all the way to where you meant to be and realizing that you forgot your phone, or a spoon for your snack, or your medicine. A thermos bottle can be added to transport your coffee or soup without burning yourself or spilling your lunch all over the place.

  4. Seriously - follow the good advice about taking your medicine as prescribed. Stay ahead of the pain. (And that’s double-plus-especially true for taking your pain medication before physical therapy.) Apply ice often - lots of handy devices for that, but it doesn’t have to be hi-tech. A cloth pouch with velcro and two or three freezable gels works about as well as anything, in my experience trying to keep Tony iced down. (And believe me, we have experience. He’s having shoulder surgery tomorrow. Since we married 6 years ago, he has had somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 surgeries.)

  5. If you don’t want to resort to Gatorade bottles, ask at the surgical center if they have a disposable urinal that you can take home. They usually do, and it has a handle, unlike the sports drink bottle.

  6. If you’re using opioid pain medicines, take a stool softener and maybe a mild laxative while you’re medicated. Adding fiber and plenty of liquid can help, but a little extra help may be in order.

16

Good idea. If you really like soup, maybe get a bowl with a snug lid and wrap it in a small towel to carry.

I was warned to be sure I had loose pull-on pants and either loose pull-on shoes or slippers that I didn’t mind wearing outside.

17

When my aunt had surgery my sister made a funny comment (my aunt loves her Vics…not in an addictive way, she just enjoys them…hey, so do I) “You’re supposed to stay ahead of the pain, but she stayed like a week ahead of it”.

A few more things. A)Someone mentioned a bathroom on the second floor. In that scenario, I always suggest moving a microwave, TV and small fridge/freezer up to the bedroom. At least that way you can hopefully go 24/48 hours without having to negotiate stairs. If need be, give a key to some you trust in so they can get in if you need help.

B)If you get some kind of ice machine to circulate ice over the surgery location, and I’m guessing you will/did, get about 10 water/juice bottles, fill them about 3/4 with water an free those. That way you can put 5 or so of them in the machine and after an hour or so put them in the back in the freezer and next time you use the machine, you’ll have the other 5. If you just use ice, like you’re ‘suppose to’, you’ll never keep up and end up sending someone to the gas station to pick up bags of ice. The frozen water bottles work just fine, and last longer in the machine to boot.

C) USE YOUR LEG/KNEE. Again, this is based on my experience, but use it as much as PT/the doc tells you too. If you don’t it’ll start to lock up on you and that’s not good. It’ll set the recover back and can even result in a second surgery to go in and break up scar tissue. The more you use it, the less it’ll hurt. It’s a bad cycle. It’s tight, you don’t use it and it’s bugs you more, so you use it less, and around it goes. You don’t want that to happen. Maybe it’s not like that with ACL, but I know it’s common with shoulder repairs.

Above all, don’t overthink this. Don’t get stressed out over it. Be at peace with it, be happy you’re getting it over with. I put my surgery off for a year. When the doc walked in a few minutes before my surgery and, along with other questions he said ‘nervous?’ he seemed taken aback when I said ‘nope, not at all’, when he asked why I said “I’m ready, I’m ready to be out of pain, I can’t get to get this over with and start feeling better.”
Of course, I overthought it. I have a whole thread on it here (starting from when I hurt myself’. I was prepared for the apocalypse when my surgery date came along. People said I was being silly, but IMO, I’d rather look in my freezer and pantry a week later and say ‘well, that was silly, I feel great’ then have to call in favors and ask friends and family to go shopping for me 3 weeks later because I still couldn’t leave the house. I had no idea what to expect.

18

When I had my knee replaced, he nurse and the doctor both warned me about the risk of constipation with the pain meds but I had the very opposite effect. I would rather have been constipated since getting up and going to the bathroom was a lot of work, to say nothing of slow.

And Doctor Jackson, your link doesn’t go where you think it does.

Good luck with your knee, Rysto. I hope you have a laptop so you can keep up with the Dope during your recuperation; it will help with the boredom.

19

Have a strong comfortable chair to sit. With a table next to it for all the paperwork that you will need to sort.

Easier said than done for some folks and homes apartments. My Mom broke her hip Aug 15th, had two surgeries and I think one of the best things of done for her is to have a place for her to chill, write letters, look at the laptop, bills, whatever. Not her bedroom, she is sick of lying in bed.

20

Ah yes - I meant to mention comfy (elastic-waist) pants and easy-on/off shoes. Plus a couple of other things:

Besides your prescription medications, you might want to add something for nausea to your shoulder bag - either some ginger ale, or Emitrol, or something prescribed - plus bring home one or two barf bags from the surgery center. A lot of people are nauseated by pain meds, or by pain, or just “hey, it’s Friday and I haven’t puked today.” This is slightly more annoying when you can’t just up and run to worship the porcelain god. And some minor wound care supplies - a little gauze and tape and ointment, at least.

Place at least one of the following within arm’s reach of each and every “perch” you have in the house (kitchen chair, comfy living room chair, on the desk, next to the bed, next to the john, etc. - any place you’re apt to be seated over the next few days): A roll of paper towels, at least one or two cloth towels, a box (or roll - I don’t judge) of tissue, some sort of trash container, and a power supply that you can reach - surge protector strip or something similar.) If you spill your coffee, you can’t go running to get a mop or towel. If your phone or tablet need charging, you might as well not bust your head open trying to twist around behind the sofa to reach an outlet.

And finally? Antibacterial wipes. Wipe your hands and your crutches pretty regularly. For obvious reasons.