Home from the Hospital

At about noon or so we began to check out of the hospital with my wife after knee replacement surgery. She came in Wednesday had a complete knee replacement, started to walk on Thursday morning and now she walked up the front steps to our home with a cane after walking over to our front steps with a walker.This morning there was a physical therapy session with a physical therapist for the 4 patients in the hospital who had their operations on Wednesday who were still recovering. I went there but I hadn't eaten breakfast yet, but I had purchased a few things at Whole Foods Market nearby to eat for breakfast. I tried to stay for the whole thing that began at 10:30 but by 11 am I was starting to get low blood sugar from not eating breakfast yet so I didn't want to pass out in the hospital because that would be embarrassing. Before I was 40 (I'm 66 now) I used to not eat breakfast or lunch often, if the work I was doing was mostly mental. I only ate breakfast and lunch if I was doing hard physical work from about age 8 to 40 and then ate only dinner or snacks. This is how I did well in college and running a business. But, at 40 I had to rethink everything because I started to have low blood sugar episodes. Also, I was an undiagnosed hypothyroid (low thyroid production) too until I was 58 when I was diagnosed with this ailment. I went on Armour thyroid then which has no side effects whatsoever like synthetics tend to. So, basically in 2006 when I was diagnosed it was mentally feeling like I was 20 again. Then when I gave up all gluten a year ago I again felt like I was 20 again because 80 to 90% of the joint and muscle pain left my body when I gave up gluten. So, I usually never have to take any pain medications at all even though I'm 66 unless I seriously injure myself which I haven't in a long time.

At about 1pm my after getting released from the hospital my wife got up and used a walker with wheels on the front part to get out into the hallway and into a wheelchair which she rode to the elevator down one floor and out the door. Then she had to negotiate about 10 vertical stairs which she did with a railing and a cane in the other hand up to where our car was. After she left the stairs she used the walker to get to the car.

The first six weeks after knee replacement surgery are not about lifting weights. They are about increasing the mobility of the new replacements in relation to the muscles in the body. If you can't get about 120 degree to 130 degrees (your heel back almost touching your upper thigh) then you have to go in for another operation to cut into the scar tissue that is interfering with doing this. So, your assignment is to work only 5 minutes in the morning and at night specific exercises to make your leg go straight and to make your leg be eventually able to come back to about 120 to 130 degrees. If  you succeed then you don't have to have a second operation. And it has to be done during these first 6 weeks. You also have to walk about 10 minutes several times a day using either a walker or a cane. But you can use an exercycle if you are careful. I'm proud of my wife because she did physical therapy in the months leading up to the operation so she was the star patient because of all her running underwater on a treadmill at a physical therapy therapeutic office. (running underwater on a treadmill reduces down pressure while still giving resistence to most of your muscles. So, you increase  physical strength without further damaging things like knees and ankles and hips by too much down pressure on all your joints. So, she was the first to get out of the hospital because of her vigilance before the operation.

Also, your good leg goes first up the stairs and your bad leg (the one operated on) goes first going down the stairs. This way you don't damage yourself accidentally.