i have a friend who is about to have a total knee replacement. So in order to show support I have decided to update one of my blogs from a few years back. . . . . For you Denny
Last April I wrote of the saga of having been given a total knee replacement for my left leg. Traumatic, but a complete success. I was able to bore anyone who would listen with tales of my fast recovery and convalescence. I was so bad that just seven weeks after the op I was taking the new knee to the gym and in July I decided to recapture my youth by doing the “Fan Dance” which took me to the peak of Pen-y-fan the highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons, without using a walking stick.
A couple of months later, using the crosstrainer at the fitness centre I received a ‘wake-up’ call when my right knee began telling me to stop with all too familiar pains. The diagnosis my surgeon after looking at the x-rays was, “Oh my God”, not the most clinically correct description but I could only concur.
Fast forward until today, when I had a total knee replacement to the right leg . . . . . . . My talented surgeon (he apparently honed his skills during ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland when the IRA was providing him with knee-capped victims to practice on), has promised a matching pair and I made him a solemn promise to take very good care of both. That has set the scene . . . . . Now for the punch line. I was going to entitle this blog “My Tena moment” but thought it could be considered sexist.
I had both my operations under an anaesthetic known as a spinal nerve block, not because I wanted to be awake to see and hear whether Holby City is true to life, nor even because of my nosey nature but simply because my surgeon decided that was what I should have.
Fascinating as it was I nodded off once I became bored – How cool is that? I awoke 2 hours later in the recovery ward. I could feel nothing below my waist and once back in my ward I thought that I had been sweating profusely because I appeared to be floating in a puddle. Oh my God! It wasn’t sweat. The sweet young nurse said “No problem” and summoned her colleague to help strip off my gown, pants and bed clothes while I blustered to hide my shame. Did I mention that I had left my dignity outside the hospital doors?
There is worse to come. . . . . . . . . .The two young lovelies stripped, washed and powdered me, reminiscent of one of my children or grandchildren, then like a fresh smelling baby they rolled my unfeeling body and just like a baby boy I performed like “Manikin Pis” and sprayed all the clean bed clothes and freshly laundered gown.
Could it get any worse? Well an hour or so later freshly suited and booted and the feeling returning to my lower body, I am determined not to disgrace myself further and I am laying in bed with a urine bottle in firing position trying my damnedest to empty the bladder because frankly I am bursting. Five hours later I still cannot perform – Zilch. The rest of the ward is full of sleeping men, snoring, farting, belching and moaning – It’s midnight when relief beckons and at last the dam has opened – there really is no feeling to compare, Aaah, the relief! Then I hear the sound of the approaching footsteps of the night staff nurse on her rounds probably to check if I have gone to sleep with my light on. I must have lost it, because I shouted “Don’t stop me now”. The guy in the next bed who I woke up along with the rest of the ward suggested that I was taking the P.
Suggestions please on whether a large box of Thornton’s similar to those handed over last year when I left will suffice this time or can you think of a more appropriate gift for the nursing staff. I apologise if this has been too much information but I thought that you deserved a laugh at my expense. JC
