Not with a bang but a gurgle

[flemmings]

I've already forgotten what 2018 was like. Look at my journal to refresh me. 2018 was snow in April, then rain and hurricane winds, that brought down trees and wires, and heat from May through Canadian Thanksgiving, after which it was just rain. As tonight, in fact. Me-wise, it was a six-week spring sinus infection that killed my sense of taste and smell, interspersed with recurring noroviruses and punctuated by cracked ribs. I mean, on top of the whole ongoing knees and hips and elbows drama. Nothing new happened to me but an abortive run-in with the jury system, the aftermath of which did, I admit, leave me feeling very happy, reading the Inferno in an Aroma coffee house near the Superior Court House, or one of them.

But there's a reason why I find little to mourn in the old year.

Made the mistake of looking at the handout for my knee surgery, assuming and rightly that they'd have exercises I was supposed to do. All of which were 'these things I have done from my youth upwards! and my physio says I'm doing them wrong'. But it was the follow-up at home that had me going No bloody way! Rent a walker. (Actually, you need a walker for the hospital, and someone to deliver it to said hospital after your surgery.) Rent crutches. Rent reach-a-things to put your underwear and socks on. Rent toilet seats with arms. Rent bath chair to use in shower. Use walker to get on to toilet or into bed, uses crutches to get down stairs, use- what? a second walker? to get around downstairs. I think they're assuming a household with able bodies in it to fetch and carry and drive one hither and yon, which in my case I certainly have not got.

I've calmed down a bit since and shall grill them if all this (including the 'possible hallucinations after surgery' are meant for very elderly patients, and if certain warnings are only meant for people with hip replacements. But I'm half convinced to try the effects of a 20 lb weight loss instead. Because I don't see me managing a walker with my twingy lower back and piriformis, or crutches with my arthritic elbows; and I especially don't see me not biking for three months after surgery, when they'll let me use a stationary bike after six weeks.

Comments

[incandescens]

Yikes. Yes, definitely grill them for more details.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

> I think they're assuming a household with able bodies

Is absolutely true. Around here, they make alternate arrangements if you don't have that. They only let me come home in 2013 and 2014 because spouse and kids could be around 24 hours a day, otherwise I would have been shuffled off to inpatient rehab.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

While the booklet has the helpful suggestion that 'you might want to book a temporary stay in an old people's home.' No thank you, I don't think I would- supposing that there was space anywhere in those perpetually crowded facilities. Maybe look into a rehab stay, I guess.

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

Both of my knees are shit, especially the right one, which a few years ago managed to cause me excruciating pain. The doctor told me that my leg bones are misaligned and that I'd need to wear a knee brace, "plus lose some weight." He didn't say how much, and I'll admit to being a bit offended since I do not consider myself overweight, but shrugged and decided to do so. It took me a year and a half, and I wound up losing something like 20 lb, and it DID help with my knee a lot. I was, however, kind of miserable being hungry all the time. It's since all come back as my eating habits have lapsed, but the knee is doing all right and the leg brace helps a lot.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The oddity is that I *have* lost 20 pounds in the last 15 months, but I still limp even at a weight that previously had me running up and down stairs. Lost cartilege is lost cartilege, I suppose, but seems my muscles at least should be stronger. I've lived in knee braces for the last twelve years- but again, half the time they irritate the inflamed tendons rsther than support them.

Even so- less weight on the knee is less weight on the knee. Worth a try at least.