Pioneers! O Pioneers!

Eight days away from surgery, at ten days out no more ibuprofen or blood thinning agents. I can take Tylenol. I’m not a real pill person so that doesn’t affect me too much. I made the mistake the other day of watching the surgery I am getting on You-Tube; UGH! It looked like something from shop class; saws, hammers, chisels, pins, glue…Oh My! No wonder they say it is painful. Despite the fact that I will be knocked out my bones will have some latent memory of the trauma. At this point I just want to get it done and quit processing it.

Many of you have expressed kind words of encouragement –I thank you for that. I didn’t realize I will have a nine-inch scar running down both my kneecaps. I hope they sew me up tight as I know I have to do a lot of bending in therapy and I don’t want my knee popping out of the slot! I want to thank all the knee surgery pioneers and guinea pigs that have gone before me to perfect this procedure. I hope they have perfected it by the time I lay on the operating table. 

Speaking of pioneers, I am confident there were many pioneers that walked hundreds of miles across the plains and over the Rockies on bad knees. They kept walking and plugging along and simply worked through the pain heading toward a better life. There was no knee-replacement surgery back then. There’s a lot of worthy soldiers that have lost their legs in the line of duty to preserve our freedom that would take my legs - bad knees and all. I’m simply a little anxious about all this and tend to tell myself the worst stories. 

I was telling Marian last night how much I will miss her – five days in the hospital, eight days in a rehab facility for PT. I know she will be a faithful visitor but I don’t expect her to sit by my bedside 24/7. I am not looking forward to down-time in a hospital bed. Hopefully I will be able to read or work on my book; of course that all depends on my lucidity on pain medication. Sometimes I think I am being a baby about all this and I apologize. I will have a better perspective when I get on the other side of the surgery and start feeling positive results. I promise to sing praises as equally as I have whined. I’ll shut up now and count my blessings for modern medicine, insurance, and supportive friends and family.

 Talk to you soon.