Day 0 -- The Knee Is Replaced, Part 3

Thursday, January 29
About 1:30 Jack came by for a visit. While he was there various people came in the room every few minutes to take blood or check vital signs. I even got a phone call from my "hostess" to find out what I wanted for dinner.

He agreed that the room was very nice and I was getting a lot of attention. A couple of years ago he had a less-than-wonderful experience in this same hospital but a different department was involved.

At 2:45 I got my first visit from the Physical Therapy department -- two people. They said I needed to sit up on the edge of the bed and try to stand. They helped me sit up and turn to the side of the bed. Then they put a wide belt around my waist and told me to stand up. The belt was to catch me when I fell over. Which I did.

I was told to bend my knee a little and I told them I couldn't. They thought I was worried it would hurt. What I meant was I was in a cast and my knee didn't bend right now. One of them tried to bend the knee a little bit and discovered why I couldn't move it. Shouldn't they have known this?

After the therapists left I looked at my left leg. I expected a bulky dressing around the knee. What I saw was a huge, tree trunk sized cast going from my upper thigh to my ankle, wrapped in a wide ace bandage. It is light weight and sounds hollow when you tap it. It's some kind of foam that hardens in place.

Just before 4:00 a lady from the Admission Office came in with a clipboard full of questions for me. These were the same questions I answered last Friday at my Pre-Op interview. While she was there a woman from the surgeon's office dropped off a leg brace "for Saturday."

I was asked my full name and date of birth every time anyone from the staff came in my room. And then they checked my wrist band to see if I was really me. Hospital policy.

My policy, which I decided upon before I checked in, was to be unrelentingly cheerful and full of good attitude. It paid off. The nurses are bored with complaints.

I napped off and on between visits from nurses and aides who kept telling me to breathe better. I got a plastic device to blow into to improve my breathing and oxygen levels. The painkillers were working well for me and my memories of the afternoon and evening are hazy. Dinner seemed very good, turkey, etc. with great pumpkin pie.

The nurse brought me a brochure about the day-by-day recovery from the surgery and valuable tips for knee rehabilitation.

Jack visited in the evening and told me how cold the weather was getting.