11 weeks anniversary and my 70th Birthday

 This morning I re-read my blog from September 2018, 11 weeks since my first Lithuanian Knee. 

"Yesterday was the 11th week since my operation. The movement in the knee is still improving although frustratingly slow progress with some days much better than others. This week I have been aware of a dull ache in the left hip after getting lower back pain when I bent over weeding in the garden. I have arranged another session with my physiotherapist for this coming Friday.

Almost every day I continue with my exercises and sessions on our home spin bike. I can now walk the dogs down the beach for a couple of miles without any problems although my fitness levels are still well below what I would like. I try to walk quickly varying the pace so that I can raise my heart rate, things are getting better. 

Still finding walking downstairs at times a bit of a challenge but after exercising it does seem to be easier. The left leg swelling seem to occur if I stand and don't move very much but when I am walking it doesn't seem to swell.

So I take confidence in that my left knee recovery was similar and now I have excellent mobility in that left knee.

This morning 13th April, my 70th birthday, Catharine and I spent a leisurly morning before walking into the village to go to pick up, or so I thought, the missing prescription for cream for dry skin around my eye socket. However there was no prescription available but our lovely Pharmasist arranged for me to set up an appointment with her under the 'Common Ailments Scheme' at 12:00 today. 

As I had been standing around for some time organising this and the 0.6 mile walk my knee was getting a bit swollen so we were going for coffee at Mojo's owned by a friend of mine Lucy. However there was a significant queue so we ended up going to the new café, expensive but coffee was good.

Day 10

Felt very stiff this morning and had been troubled with pain overnight. Finally woken sufficiently to get out of bed at 07:45 but not comfortable at all. After walking to the restaurant I realised that I had left my mask behind, about turn and back to the room! 

Mark, Mike and Hazel, John but no Kelli this morning at breakfast. 

Week 3 after the operation

Day 7 2022-02-18

After another night of short sleep patterns, around 2 hours each time, I found I was very stiff this morning. I organised my breakfast while Catharine was taking Jazz for his morning walk, then we went to check on the situation in Celyn Y Mor after storm Dudley, fortunately no obvious damage. We also made decisions on which bits of furniture to swap out when the new sofa Catharine has found arrives.

Catharine then prepared to go to work at the garage while I started on the standard regime for the day.

For physiotherapy I opened the package delivered yesterday containing the Black Peanut and pump. It took ages to inflate, I should have used the compressor in the garage! Using the peanut gives much more stability for the leg and pelvic exercises.






The physiotherapy went well and I have sorted out the list of exercises to do in which order.

I am trying to treat with ice 3 or 4 times a day as the knee still swells quite quickly with standing or movement. I am able to walk upstairs without any crutches but I still can’t get my head to allow me to walk downstairs in the same alternate step down pattern.

Day 8

A restful day today as, once again, I had not slept well and the knee was very stiff and sore in the morning. I did a few small exercises but none of my normal physiotherapy. Catharine and I went out for a drive to go and look at things at the garage and get some more lpg in the disco. But for the rest of the day we took it all easy.

A visit from Kat to drop the dogs off with us for the afternoon and then Hywel and Kat came for dinner after his time at the track. Nice to see them both and to hear about the day at Ty Croes track. Watched some TV before bed.

Day 9

Woke around 03:50 and felt very uncomfortable so I took paracetamol which allowed me to drop off to sleep again but then I woke up at 07:25 feeling pretty under the weather but got up and sorted out breakfast. The weather was not looking good but by the time Catharine had got up and got ready to take Jazz out it did dry out a bit.

I had a zoom chat booked with Al and Liz on the club website and I spent a deal of time working on template improvements before sending Al some links.

I dug out my wobble board and added that to the physiotherapy routine.

Still swelling and getting warm. No noticeable change on bike rotation.

Early morning stiffness is an ongoing issue so I am tending to use an ice pack after breakfast. The other area which is stiff is the back of my calf.

Day 10 4 weeks since the operation

Once again not brilliant sleep but managed to stay asleep most of the time up till 06:25. Once again very still above the knee when I got up. I have been checking on the web for details but it seems I am just a little too keen to get back to normal.

With this being a revision I am guessing that the recovery time will be a little longer especially as I contracted COVID and I am 2 years older than when I had the left knee replaced.

Today I have not gone on the bike but I have done all the other physiotherapy tasks. I note from the various advice areas on the web that the calf pumps are good at dispersing the swelling and avoiding DVTs. I may try wearing a compression stocking again for a while like I did last time.