My Knee: A year later

It’s been almost a year since my knee replacement. To say that it has been an eventful year is clearly an understatement. Covid, elections, riots…the list is long and profound.

But the year for my knee has been all good. It doesn’t hurt. It works pretty darn well. I take no medicines for it. And I can run for short distances.

I wrote a couple of columns about the surgery and rehab. Dr. Justin Jones of OrthoTennessee-Maryville did the surgery on December 11^th of 2019. He had warned me that it was a painful surgery, given the severity of the degenerative changes. He was right.

I gave him a piece-of-garbage knee to work with but he did a great job. The surgery, which actually takes less than an hour, went about twice that for me.

To put the first few days in a nutshell, when they tell you to “stay ahead of the pain,” they know what they’re talking about. I thought I was pretty tough but that surgery knocked me down a notch or two.

Take your medicine. My surgery was on Wednesday and I took my last pain pill Sunday night. That’s probably about average and you’re not going to get hooked on anything in that short of time.

Rehab was started immediately--I was doing exercises in my hospital bed the night of the surgery. Getting full extension of your knee after surgery is hugely important and I was determined to do that.

Ice, controlling the swelling, and moving are all essential to good outcomes. I must have walked 10 miles around my living room in the first few days.

Under the direction of my colleague Candy Martin, PTA, I began formal rehab on the next Monday. I was scheduled to start on Friday but I wimped out. I know it is the business I’m in but the rehab is absolutely essential. You’ve got to put in the work to get a good knee.

I did lots of extra work. Such is the benefit of having a key to the door and knowing what I was doing. Daily rehab. Several hours on the weekends.

Six weeks later, I was back on the road bike. I did River Road (flat, safe) with my daughter, who insisted on going because, well, she wasn’t real sure I should be out there. She soon found out I was fine.

Nine weeks post-op, I ventured out on my mountain bike with my buddy and bike sensei Steve Bright. I wasn’t really sure of it myself. But when my bike slid down and I came down hard on that knee and nothing happened, I knew it would be fine.

I actually let out a little whoop, which worried Steve but it was a whoop of joy, not from pain. From that point on, I have not let up. A couple of months ago, I started taking Tuesdays off and most of those are spent mountain biking with my buddy Ken Bell.  We’ve been visiting different mountain bike areas and riding hard.

We’re really like a couple of kids out there—biking on sweet single track will do that for you. Just imagine the most fun you’ve had on a bicycle and that’s what a couple of hours at Bakers Preserve will do for you.

So, as I approach my one year anniversary, I have several things to be thankful for. I’m thankful for a good surgeon. I’m thankful for good physical therapy. I’m thankful for the technology that allows me to live life fully. I’m thankful for a new knee.

As I said not too long after that surgery, if you are postponing joint replacement surgery for whatever reason, consider going ahead and getting it done. If your knee or hip are holding you back from doing what you want to do, get them fixed. It’s not exactly easy but you won’t regret it.