I'm Back ... OR .... Ouch! My Knee

I had surgery on Monday to remove some bone or cartilege fragments from my knee. The damage had been done in my teens, I presume from the falls I had roller-skating on hard cement floors.

The nurse advised that the surgery went well and the doctor smoothed out a piece of the knee-bone which had been damaged, so that now my leg-bone should move more smoothly within the knee-joint. I went in for the surgery around 9.30am and was out of the theatre by 10.30am. By around 2pm I was out of the hospital and back in my motel room, where I proceeded to sleep for around 26 hours with a couple of food and toilet breaks thrown in.

I hate to imagine what the aftermath would have been had the knee been completely replaced. 

At first, it was quite difficult - the knee was quite painful, despite the use of so-called painkillers which seemed to have about as much effect on the pain levels as eating a couple of barley sugars.

For the past couple of days I've been hobbling around on crutches similar to the ones pictured here. Initially I'd quite concerned that my damaged left-shoulder would be adversely affected having to carry that extra weight, but though the pain has increased in that joint, it doesn't appear to be doing any damage. This is probably helped by the fact that I'm doing as little walking as possible.

It's now day 3 since the operation and the knee has been getting better every day! My friend Karen and Ana have been a Godsend during this time. Woohoo! I should be able to kick my heels up pretty soon. 

Sometime in the near future, I'll bring you up to date on what happened after my shoulder surgery and didn't have the use of one arm. 

It's not until you are in these situations that you realise how they can impact on your life, for example, in the last couple of days, I've rediscovered the importance of pockets. If I'm hungry, my food is limited to what I can carry there, because my hands are otherwise occupied with holding onto the crutches and trying to walk! I've found that most fruits can fit into my pockets, as well as small quantities of chocolate.

It gets a bit messy when I need a drink though.