Monday, January 9, 2012

Weak In The Knees, To Say The Least

My knee.  I must have really stretchy skin.
Yesterday I had a surgical consult with Dr. Huber.  We both knew it was just a matter of time before I scheduled a day for him to take out my old knee and put in a new one.  Gives me the creeps.  Looks like I am a candidate for a patellofemoral replacement often referred to as a 'partial' in knee replacement converstions. The knee has three compartments and it appears that only one of mine is totally trashed so that will be the one he replaces.  Even though a 'partial' sounds less creepy, they still go in and take out part of my knee.   Ick.

"He has some time March 12,"  office person Amanda said.
"I'll take it,"  I said.

The consult was productive.  He was able to answer all of my questions.  I'd prepared myself by contacting five of his previous patients before I went in and everyone was happy.  One ran a marathon this summer.

Most skiers would wait until the end of the season for the operation but since I can't ski anyway,  I'm doing it now.

When I say I can't ski, it's not entirely true.  I can double-pole on the flats.  I always wear my down jacket because I can't go hard enough to sweat.  Yesterday I felt cocky and skied the 3 km man-made loop a few times.  It's not really fun...at least it wasn't yesterday when it was 5 degrees.  I have my bike on a trainer and spin once in a while.  Last time I did that was Sunday, and Monday was '10 on the pain scale' day so the bike may not be a good idea.

Of course I'm not the first person in the world to go through a surgery like this but I feel like I am.


Good News.
The doc wrote me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory called meloxicam.  (I can never tell if an anti-inflammatory works or not but whatever) I looked it up and it's pretty much what we give our dog Max when he's stiff.  He responds to it really well...almost immediately...and I've always said that I wish there was a human version.  Bingo!

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