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I decided to have my knee replaced when..
How my life changed after knee replacement

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Right TKR to be Dec 26, 2017

mainelyneuropsych@gmail.com
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I'm 70 years old. I've done fairly heavy yard work since my 20s--digging up sod, loading and hauling wheelbarrows of mulch, planting and tending our gardens, lopping thick brush to dry for wood stove kindling, and so on.

For the past 3 or 4 years my legs have felt like lead weights stuffed with angry nerve endings. But I've kept plodding along.

In February of 2017, I twisted both legs at the knee when I slipped while exiting a very deep hotel bathtub (the kind with jets). A few days later my left leg was purple and swollen from thigh to toes and the right one wasn't happy, either. Ultrasound revealed bilateral Bakers' cysts, the left one dissected.

Two months later I finally had an appt. with an orthopedic surgeon. I think of him as Dr. Rictus, because he grinned constantly and creepily while telling me that I was too old and weak to be worth helping in any way. Huh?

Before an MRI revealed how poorly off both knees are, I repainted the dining room and then hand-sanded, double-stained, and double-varnished its hardwood floor, screaming softly all the while. I've always worked through pain, then healed.

Two months later, I finally saw a 2nd orthopod. He took me seriously, and Sept 23 (following lots of Physical Therapy), he did arthroscopic surgery to clean up the L meniscus, which was worse than the R.

Once healed, R=L but both knees have severe arthritis & their menisci still resemble tissue paper left over after kids have torn open their Christmas gifts. They still hurt like the dickens all day and pain wakes me 2 or 3 times every night. Apparently I don't heal as fast at 70 as I did in my 20s. Who'd have guessed?

More PT merely kept me moving, so I've talked the doc into bilateral TKR in two stages, the first to be the day after Xmas.

Lots of pain to get through before any gain, and once the R knee heals I get to do it all over again!

Kinda scared here... I'm reading everything on this site and elsewhere.

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Bethsail
how are you doing?
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