Thursday, April 02, 2009

Knee update

Yesterday I said I’d give you an update on my knee.

Back in November I blogged that having seen a knee specialist it turns out that I’ve got arthritis in both my knee and hip and that the only treatment was to have them replaced.

In January I went back to see the specialist and was told that they planned to put a local anesthetic in my hip then go back to see them six weeks later. Following the local, three things could happen.

1) the pain goes away completely. If it does then nothing more needs to be done other than come back every year for a check-up.

2) the pain would go away then come back. If that happens then I need to have a new hip as even though the pain appears to be in my knee, it’s actually coming from the hip.

3) the pain doesn’t go away. If that happens then the pain is coming from my knee. However, I’ll need to have a new hip then a new knee and that they both will have to be done within 12 weeks. It’s all very complicated ! ! !

Shortly before we went to Blackpool I received two letters from the hospital giving me a date for my local (16th April) and a date for my pre op assessment, which was today.

I didn’t really think that having a local in the hip would be classed as surgery, but apparently it is.

This morning I went for my pre op assessment and it was pretty much straight forward to check how healthy you are etc. One thing that is causing me concern is it looks like the ‘op’ will have to be done under a general anesthetic. I can’t see why and the nurse couldn’t understand why neither. He did ring my consultant but he and his underling won’t be back in the hospital until Monday.

I have a bad reaction to general anesthetics, always have done. Even something as simple as having a tooth out by ‘gas’ when I was a child wasn’t pleasant. When I had a hip op eleven years ago, I did explain to the anesthetist the problems I have and he gave me something for it, but I still through up for 12 hours solid ! ! !

It’s now at the stage where if the ops, and I could have to have three, must be done under a general rather than a local, then I’d rather suffer with the pain. It really is that bad…

So I’m going to have to wait until the little nurse man phones me on Monday to see what the next step is.

Marie

1 comment:

Jennysmith said...

Hi Marie, good Lord! What a complicated process! And no, anesthetic is evil! It crawls through your system like poison - good for you for standing up to that. I'm sure its for their convenience , not yours.

You seem so young to have one of those hip operations. But thats probably an advantage in the long term. And you're a very active lady so perhaps you will recover quickly.

How are those multitude of drugs?

xxxxx