My Knee has been upgraded.

That's right folks, my knee has been upgraded. That is what my youngest daughter told me, don't think of it as a replacement, think of it as an upgrade. So that makes; one hip upgraded, one knee upgraded, one heart upgraded, and one pair of eyes upgraded. So! what's that make me, Grade A super pasteurized and ready to eat.

It has been 10 days since the upgrade has been done and I must say I am doing extremely well. On the day that the operation was done, and I had awakened from the recovery room, I actually got out of bed and walked around the hospital room using just my cane. Wonder of wonders, my knee no longer hurt when I walked on it. Yes, there was soreness, swelling, and pain in the tissue where the knee had been cut open to perform the upgrade. What was really nice and thoughtful, was that my friend Bob Hess, stayed with me all during the operation, and well into my waking up in the ICU, and then stayed with me until I was transferred to my hospital room. The operation was performed by Dr. Kenneth J. Kress of Resurgens Orthopaedics. They are located at St. Josephs Hospital, in Atlanta.

As I have stated in previous postings, I was a bit apprehensive before the operation was performed, but I have to admit, that I have had very little in the way of problems. Dr. Kress was surprised that I had already gotten out of bed, before he even came in to see me. I haven't had to use the walker at all.

I stayed in the hospital for the requisite 3 days as required by medicare before going to the rehab facility. I chose to go to Signature Healthcare of Marietta for my rehab. The reason I chose them was because they took very good care of Claudia during her final days, and they took good care of me as well.

I will say, that a large percentage of the people remembered Claudia and they remembered me as well. In a lot of ways it was quite a homecoming. Yes! I will admit that it brought back some difficult memories of spending time with Claudia there, but for the most part all of the personnel that worked with Claudia Loved her, which helped me a great deal.

Their Rehab staff is one of the best in the area, and they worked me hard. Many of them kept asking when did I have my knee done? They couldn't believe I had recovered as quickly as I did. By the way, their rehab program includes physical rehab for the injured limbs, etc. and they also have Occupational Rehab. for helping you to do day to day items, such as eating, drinking, bathing, sitting, reading, writing, and on and on. The whole idea is to get you back to the ability to function for yourself at home alone, if necessary.

My therapy continues here at home for the next 4 weeks. I have a Range of Motion machine that exercises my leg automatically. I have to use it for a total of 4 hours a day. I have to tell you, it does help with getting the joint properly stretched and exercised.

I want to thank all of my friends and family for their well wishes and their prayers. They are working.

God Bless from the gahillbilly.


"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"

Follow-up on replacement hip.

Hello everybody,

This is the gahillbilly following up on my replacement hip. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was looking forward to having this operation done. My hip was replaced on April 16 this year, and I am glad I did. I was out of bed walking on the hip the next morning. I had to use a walker as my muscles were really sore and bruised, but there was no pain in the joint, no sound either. Hurray!

I keep steadily improving with my range of motion, and my freedom from pain. I am going to rehab three times a week for about a full hour of physical therapy. Rehab includes range of motion, strengthening, and endurance exercises. Believe it or not I am enjoying the exercise. My PT Instructor(who is a very cute young lady) tells me I am too aggressive. Funny thing, my wife says that too. What does that mean? do I charge in and hurt myself? Yes I have a tendency to do that, so I have forced myself to slow down so I do not pop the new joint out and have to go through this all over. AT age 72 I am healing very quickly and I am feeling very much better now.

That's all for now.
gahillbilly