Want a Joint?

Monday is the day that a surgeon will cut a six inch incision into my body, remove my knee, and replace it with a brand new joint. After a fall down some stairs, I finally smashed a knee that bone on bone. It was riddled with arthritis as a result of another surgery twenty years ago when I tore a ligament dancing, a far more happy accident than falling down the stairs and a much simpler surgery than I am facing now.

The problem is that whenever they cut into your body, scar tissue and then arthritis is also a result. Now, I am convinced I need the surgery, and friends to whom I have spoken laud the wonder of not hurting when they walk or bend, but I am worried about the physical therapy. 

My PT, whom I love, says I will hate her soon because she intends to work the new joint so hard that I will need to take vicodin to tolerate it. She says also that it could be several months of this torture, and that if I don't do all that is necessary, I face the possibility of a frozen knee, a knee that won't straighten all the way or a walk that looks more like a pirate with a peg leg. None of these prospects are attractive, obviously, but the remedy seems almost as awful.

The joint itself is a titanium prosthetic that they believe will last 15 to 30 years depending on how hard I am on it. Since I don't intend to jog or downhill ski, I believe I have a good shot at keeping it for a while, and now,  if I do need another before moving onto to heaven, they are able to go in and just replace the plastic pad and not the whole prosthetic.

An oddity of having a metal prosthetic in my body besides setting off bells and whistles at the airport is that  I will have to take antibiotics forever before any dental work including cleanings. Because the mouth is a breeding ground for bacteria, if any gets into the bloodstream, the area around the prosthetic could become horribly and dangerously infected.

Despite the difficulties associated with any surgical recovery, I am assured that I will feel like a new woman afterwards; that soon I won't even think about the knee as I go about my activities. I am focusing on that eventuality.