David’s Treatment

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ContributorDavid, 67Read Full Bio

Biography

David, 67, has been physically active his whole life: a skier, a gymnast, a scuba diver and cyclist. When he was 15 he broke my tibial plateau, tore both cartilages in the anterior cruciate ligament. By age 30, his knees were arthritic and unstable and his knee issues led to back pain. It got to the point where he could barely walk four blocks. David’s wife convinced him that he needed to have surgery.

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ContributorDavid, 67Read Full Bio

Biography

David, 67, has been physically active his whole life: a skier, a gymnast, a scuba diver and cyclist. When he was 15 he broke my tibial plateau, tore both cartilages in the anterior cruciate ligament. By age 30, his knees were arthritic and unstable and his knee issues led to back pain. It got to the point where he could barely walk four blocks. David’s wife convinced him that he needed to have surgery.

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David ended up having both of his knees replaced at the same time, The surgeon was willing to do this due to David’s upper body strength. To be prepared, before the surgery, David simulated tasks he would need to do without using his legs. David felt that protocol for knee replacements was "laid out fairly well.” David was in the hospital for four days geared towards helping David walk again and use stairs. His pain was managed fairly well.

DAVID: So I was scheduled for surgery at 8 am. Which meant I had to show up two hours early for preparation. I got out about 12 I'm told. I was still asleep. That was after having both knees replaced. Normally takes about two hours from what I understand for each knee. I was in recovery for about an hour and a half. And I ended up back in the room about 1:30. I was pretty well still sedated so I don't think I was in a great deal of pain. I believe I had a nerve block so my knees weren't bothering me that much. In fact I remember thinking, uh, I was kind of surprised that it didn't hurt more.

DAVID: About four o'clock physical therapists came in, stood me up, and had me move my legs around. Try and get some circulation going and to at least begin learning to walk on my knees.

DAVID: I was in the hospital for a total of four days. Um, every day I had physical therapy twice. And it was geared toward two specific goals. One, learning to walk with the walker. And then secondly, learning to go up and down stairs, which is something I knew I would need to be able to do. Normally for single replacements, people are told to, when particularly when going up and down stairs, um, go down with the bad leg and up with the good leg. I kept puzzling over which one was the good one and which one was the bad one. The good one in my case was the one closest to the railing. [LAUGH]

DAVID: I was able to walk entirely around the ward by the time I was ready to go home, uh, with a walker. It became increasingly easier as they took more and more tubes out of me till I was walking around with just a few monitors. And then learning the stairs I actually went up and down the back stairs of the hospital between floors.

DAVID: I was in the hospital about one extra day from normal because I'd had a fairly good amount of blood loss and so I had three units of blood transfused and I was somewhat anemic. By the time I was ready to get home I was, uh, reasonably mobile.

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