How it all started

   I guess I should have given a bio on how this knee crap started. I played tennis all through jr high and high school. That court can tear your knees up, but when you are young, you don't think about the damage you are doing to your body. I would wake up at night with my legs cramping so badly I would cry half the night. As I got older and started my family, my knees settled down, or so I thought. I had a silent enemy that was working overtime, osteoarthrtis was going to town on my knees.

    Last year on Thanksgiving of 06 I had gone to town. My daughter and my husband were in the kitchen getting our family Thanksgiving meal prepared. As I took the last step up onto our deck my foot caught and I fell heavily onto my right knee. It hurt so bad all I could do was lay there trying to catch my breath. I had the front door blocked so they had to run through the house and go out the back door to get to me. By the time they ran around the house I was back on my feet. I felt foolish and told them both that I was ok, not realiing that I had torm my minuscus totally away from the bone.

     I was working as a lunch lady since I had retired from the local news paper 6 years ago and had gotten bored staying at home. I went back to work after the holidays and felt fine. On Feb. 02 of 07 I was getting ready to go to work and pivoted to pick up my purse and a horrible pain shot down my leg from my knee. I wasn't able to return to work after that. I called my GP and he referred me to an OS. I got in the next day. After taking so many tests I wanted to scream he told me that I had torn my minuscus and would benefit me to have a PKR(partial knee replacement ). I was scheduled to have the surgery on March 22, 07.

     The surgery went as expected,  but then on or around the 3 weeks mark post op, I started feeling a different kind of pain and could feel a clunk when I walked.  Xrays showed that my femural  component had broken loose. I went back to surgery for a revision on the 17th of May. Five days later the spacer shot out and lodged in the medial side of my op knee. That was so painful!! Before I could find another OS to see if he could get my knee straightened out, my husband Dave had a 5 vessel heart by-pass and the caroited, he then had a massive stroke in surgery. My knee was put on the back burner until I knew that he was going to be ok. This took place on June 28th.

   After several months of intense PT and rehab, he was finally released to come home. I had to drive him to PT everyday and make sure that he was taking his meds at the right time and so on. Finally after a month I knew that he would be ok and I started looking for a new OS. I found a wonderful doctor and he scheduled me for surgery on the 22nd of Oct. The surgery went as planned and I was back home 3 days later. I had been so comfortable with this new OS I failed to ask him about pain control. I had a horrible two weeks after surgery until I could get in to see a pain management doctor. By that time, the soft tissue damage in my knee had caused me to lose flexation and now I am heading back to surgery for a MUA. I saw my OS Fri and he told me that he was expecting this. That I had had so much prior damage from the previous 2 surgeries that he expected me to have a problem with the soft tissue.

   I'm not happy about the MUA but I'll do what ever I have to do to get my knee back to as close to normal as possible. Now it's time to take a nap, since I don't sleep at night, the pain comes back and I have to hit the floor. I'll add more later.

 

Angel

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