My wife, Celine, and I love to travel, we love to visit new places, we love to wander through strange streets, and meander our way around new towns and villages. In fact we just enjoy going for walks together.
Unfortunately, walking requires healthy legs, healthy legs need good knee joints, and when the knee joints start to creak, all those enjoyable excursions start to lose some of their sparkle. The six months we recently spent investigating Mediterranean Europe, were full of long days of walking and wandering, we saw many wonderful places, strolled through beautiful countryside, meandered through a hundred ancient villages and strode down numerous elegant city streets. However, towards the end of our journey, my love of walking, strolling and meandering began to take second place to the relief of sitting comfortably in some pavement café, partaking of another favourite pastime, drinking coffee, eating patisseries, and people-watching at our leisure. Yes, my knees had finally reached the end of their useful life and the time had come for their replacement.
The decision to go for bilateral total knee replacement surgery had actually been made more than a year earlier, but with our plans for Europe already well advanced, I had decided to put those knees to the final test, and get my money’s worth out of my parents gift. And get my money’s worth I most certainly did. So a couple of months after our return to California, my day to be laid out on the butcher’s slab finally arrived, and on June 1st I placed myself at the mercy of the competent hands of Dr Lee; and I chose the knock-out anaesthesia option, not having any wish to listen to a bunch of people discussing what they find as my knees were sliced open 4 inches above and below the knee cap.
Six hours later, I awoke to find myself being moved to my overnight room, and a couple of hours after that the first physio-terrorist – sorry –therapist – was getting me out of bed and walking me out into the hallway with the comfort of one of those wheeled walkers in front, and the PT ready to grab hold of a sturdy belt around my waist at the rear. Amazingly, I was walking painlessly on my new knees already!
Progress for the first couple of weeks continued apace, encouraged by a non-stop regimen of exercises, the regular application of heat pads and judicious minimal consumption of pain-killers, especially of the opiates which I really disliked and cut out of my diet as soon as possible. I had hoped that with all the free time I would have on my hands I would be able to write copiously, but I hadn’t bargained for the time that exercise regime would consume, the ongoing effect of many disturbed nights as my knees settled in, or didn’t, or for the discomfort of sitting at a desk. My goal then, and now six weeks later, was to persuade my new knees, and all the disturbed tissues around them, that being able to move from dead straight (00 angle of bend) to way past a right angle (as much as 1200), something about which they all conspired to be as awkward as possible. I’m getting there, but the rate of progress has slowed considerably from the euphoria of that first walk to the nurses’ station in the hallway and back again.
So that, dear readers, is why I have written so little in the last few weeks, and I hope I have not lost your interest completely. From today onwards I will do better and try once more to post new blogs a couple of times a week. Please enjoy.
PS No photos to go with this post; my knees were never very photogenic and I reckon pictures of long scars wouldn’t be as interesting as allowing your imaginations to run wild! Suffice to say the long scars are fading fast, and we can start looking forward to our next travel adventure.
