A look back at the surgery experience

I had the surgery on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009, but just now have I gotten around to editing and uploading video from my surgery/hospital stay. So I'm taking this opportunity to recap my experience at Aurora Baycare to go along with the video snippet below.

Everything went pretty fast the day of the surgery after they got my leg shaved and cleaned in the prep room. They gave me a local anesthetic injection before going into surgery, and after getting to the surgery room and saying hello to the anesthesiologist, I don't remember much until waking up in recovery. I was given a femoral nerve block to lessen the pain for the first 24 hours. They also had me on a drip-based pain killer (some type of morphine derivative, I was told) for the first 30 hours, so I wasn't feeling much pain. I was feeling more groggy and sleepy than in pain.

The hospital was great--with good nursing, physical therapy, and other staff. I even had a private room. I progressed nicely in PT--so I was able to go home that Friday early in the afternoon. I'm told some people need to stay a bit longer for total knee replacements--in some cases, three days.

Overall, the hospital prepared me well for the surgery. I had to attend a education class about three weeks before the surgery, and blood testing and nose swab testing several days beforehand (the nose swab tests for the presence of staph bacteria, which can increase the chance of infection). I also had to go visit my primary physician for a health clearance prior to the surgery. 

Once piece of advice I have for anyone considering total knee replacement is to keep in mind it's a pretty serious, inpatient procedure. I know that there are minimally invasive knee replacement procedures with a smaller incision and considerably less trauma, but that wasn't a good option for me given the extensive valgus deformation that had to be corrected, and other "soft tissue" work that needed to be done given the sorry state of my knee.

It's also a good idea to get your recovery area at home nice and clean. Keeping the incision area germ-free is vital. They don't want you to shower or bathe until after your staples/stitches are removed (actually, the second day after removal). As a result, it's a about two weeks after surgery before you're able to shower again, so it helps to have a place ready for sponge baths, with plenty of wipes on hand. I went through a lot of wipes until I got those darn staples out. That first hot shower is great!

So overall, it was an excellent hospital experience. They do a lot of knee and hip replacements and sports medicine at this hospital, so I was confident in their abilities going in. It went great--but as I'm finding out, for someone relatively young and healthy like me, it's the first few weeks of rehab at home that is the tough part, not so much those two days in the hospital.

Comments

[Max Bouaya]

Great post!

[Morgan Humble]

So how are you doing now? I could never imagine getting a knee replacement or any kind of surgery, for that matter. Luckily for you, you're in the hands of very capable doctors and you had a great time in the hospital. Good luck on your speedy recovery!

[Roberto Michel]

Thank you. The surgery doesn't really start hurting until the a few days later. For about about six weeks, it was hard to sleep comfortably through the night, but then the pain subsided enough to sleep OK. IMHO, the real challenge of a TKR is not the pain after the trauma of the surgery, but rather the dogged physical therapy, range of motion work, and strengthening that need to take place for several months afterward to make a strong recovery.