This book combines a travelogue, a documentary, and advice based on personal experience with medical knowledge. The ‘travel’ is my year-long journey through total knee replacement (TKR—also known as TKA or Total Knee Arthroplasty). Photographs document the experience from the patient’s point of view. Advice is offered to help the patient prepare for and persevere through an undeniably painful and challenging recovery.
Information is included on all the essential aspects of TKR; selecting a surgeon, preparing your mind and body for surgery, and dealing with critical issues. Particular attention is paid to the time spent in the hospital immediately after surgery and what you, the patient, can do to facilitate your recovery at home. This guide will also help patients having a partial knee replacement, although recovery from that procedure is considerably more manageable. The book concludes with a glossary of terms that will become part of your recovery vocabulary and sets of exercises that will help you restore your normal gait.
There is no sugarcoating the experience. Total knee replacement (TKR) is a painful and challenging procedure, and the recovery process is long and tedious. Those who choose to have TKR have already experienced significant pain and inconvenience due to osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, or other conditions. They are willing to undergo more pain and inconvenience in the near future to reduce or even eliminate pain later on, restore their pre-compromised gait, and resume a normal life. I know because I’ve been there. I am a female in my mid-seventies and in reasonably good physical shape, knees aside, but I was never an athlete and, therefore, not trained to push through pain. This is a significant concept in rehab that will be discussed later. I had suffered from osteoarthritis for nearly 20 years. By the time of my surgery, my mobility had become severely impaired. For almost a year, I had walked with a cane and could not straighten my legs.
I am writing this account of my journey through TKR surgery because I could not find a comprehensive, first-person description that answered the many questions I had despite an abundance of readily available material online. Much of that material is presented in medical or technical language. I was looking for something more personal that would guide me through the entire experience, beginning with how to best prepare myself for the surgery. I wanted to be able to anticipate the hospital visit—both pre and post-surgery—and to know that I was well prepared for what was to follow. How could I optimize my recovery space at home? What steps could I take before surgery to make my home safe and comfortable for my physically compromised self? And how was surgery likely to impact my state of mind?
