Wrestling With A Bear

My new knee is three weeks old.  I’d like to tell you  things went smoothly, but they didn’t.  I was the first patient of the day.  I met with all the players prior to surgery – my doctor, his team of nurses, the anesthesiologist, the x-ray tech, the guy who shaved my leg, and a couple of signature gatherers.  Several medical well wishers signed my right leg confirming that this was the leg the team would be working on.  I gave them all permission to proceed.

They put me out and about an hour and a half later the surgeon reported to Ruth that I was in “recovery” and “doing well”.   She’d get to see me as soon as I woke up.

The first thing I remember was a voice asking me if I could “wiggle my toes”.  I looked down, saw them, and gave it a try.  Nothing.  “Don’t worry, we’ll keep checking.”  And then Ruth walked in.  She reported, “The doctor said everything went well.”

Faster than you can say “Hot dogs!”, the surgeon appeared.  His opening line was, “We’ve got a problem.”  They placed the wrong implant in my leg.  The clean up crew discovered the error during the cleanup process.  They counted all of the scalpels, sponges, tubes, needles, medical gismos and gadgets and found that a mistake had been made.  The implant inserted into my femur was incorrect.  The other three parts were fine.

“We’ve got to go back, take the incorrect part out, and place the correct part in.”

So, that’s how it went.  About seven hours later I had gone through a second surgery, second recovery, and they moved me to my room.  I found out later that the incorrect part required a “cementing or gluing process”.  The part I was supposed to receive provided for future bone growth and didn’t require cement.

“If we left the wrong part in, it would become loose, and you’d have problems down the road.”

Since then, things have improved.  I’ve had six sessions of physical therapy,  and I’m able to walk around the house on my own.  It’s been slower than I wanted, but I’m moving forward.

The greatest post surgery challenges are associated with self-care. I wore compression hose for two weeks. We bought a gel filled “slinky” type gadget called a doff n donner that helped with pulling the hose up my sausage bloated leg. We got the hang of how to use it on the tenth of fourteen days.  I couldn’t change the dressing without help, and I couldn’t put on my right sock or shoe.  Getting on and off the toilet became an Olympic event.  Getting out of a chair, and out of bed, required deep thought and determined concentration.  I’d been down this path before, but the double dose of anesthesia slowed me way down.

Throughout the process you relearn all the things you once took for granted.  You celebrate each step forward and curse the steps back.  The biggest single hurtle was putting my right sock on and off.  I couldn’t bend my knee far enough to allow my hands to slip the sock over my toes.  Pulling the sock off my heal at night was equally challenging.

Putting my sock on by myself became a major goal.   If I could do that I believed everything else would fall into place.  I tried a couple different techniques. I attempted to lasso my toes with the open end of the sock.  I hoped that if I caught enough toe I’d be able to pull the sock on.  That didn’t work.

Next, I rolled the sock onto itself to create a type of frisbee.  I attempted to toss the frisbeed sock onto my toes.  It became a combination frisbee, ring-toss game.  I could never catch enough toe, and retrieving the frisbeed sock became a challenge of its own.

Ultimately, I was able to lie on the bed at a three-quarter angle.  My right leg was on the bed, and the left dangled over the side so I could catch myself if I fell. The angle allowed me to pull my right leg with both hands to help bend my new knee.  Once I moved it far enough, I could pull the sock over my toes.  The process involved a lot of pulling and tugging.  I felt like I was wrestling with a bear.

I pulled off my first successful attempt a week ago.  Each day gets easier.  I start the day with a protein filled breakfast, and immediately after showering, dressing, and putting on my right sock, I take a nap.