I’m a 58 year old woman whose been in need of a replacement for a few years. My consultant has put me off as long as he could but consented to do the deed last Tuesday. The waiting list was 6 months, and though it seemed a long time to wait once green light had been given it gave me time to loose weight and strengthen up! The day came and I was eventually done, after a nil by mouth 7am start, at 2.30/3.00.Trunndled back to the ward at about 6, then we all had a ward swap around whilst I was recovering very foggy but no pain at all. The first night was only disturbed by the frequent use of a bedpan, please someone design an easy to use ladies one…really not easy at all!
By midday on the Wednesday they had me on a frame and walking to the loo,bp was low so pain killers reduced with no adverse affects tho meant didn’t get on crutches early as was lightheaded.thurs was crutches/stairs Friday discharged just after lunch with a bag of goodies.
Pain relief was/is pretty good, morphine (in hospital) paracetamol and codine, surgery amazing..lovely clean wound, straight staples…everyone on surgical team made it all easy to understand. nursing team fantastic all knew what they were doing, answered questions however silly, 99% cheerful and ready to smile, one was grumpy ( upshot being a bedpan accident) but there is always one! Can’t fault the staff at all, even with difficult patients they excelled, mostly!
The only complaints I have are with 1/the food, breakfast fine but I lost couple LBs as it was pretty unappetising lunch/supper, and really didn’t help recovery 2/ noise on wards, caused by unanswered buzzers and Dementia patient, we had a very confused lady on our ward(there were I think side rooms available) she slept all day and talked all night, I even ended up giving her a drink as she was generally ignored and even tried to get out of bed so to avoid an accident the other patients used their buzzers to get attention..this was quite surprising as the staff were generally vey attentive. I do realise the wards are understaffed etc but a patient like this needs extra attention and watching.
So apart from that a very positive experience, now at home with few painkillers and lots of excersises..onward n upward and just need to get in line for the other knee.
PLEASE TAKE NOTE if you are planning a replacement excersises are a must beforehand, another patient was in pain all the time I was there, she hadn’t done a single pre-op excersise, the post op ones are very painful but I’m assured a must for a full recovery.