Good Morning!
________________________________________________
Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum, so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.
________________________________________________
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
– William Shakespeare, Hamlet: Act IV, scene 5
________________________________________________
The National Endowment for the Arts poses the question, “Why Shakespeare?” and actors, professional and amateur, as well as other enthusiasts, give us their answers, as performances of Shakespeare’s works take place across America.
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
My sweet wife had knee replacement surgery last Wednesday. She is recovering well but has a continuous pain as she is working her knee in rehab. She is improving, but it will be at least a month or two before she is back to ‘normal,’
Now when I heard the doctor talking about replacement, I thought they were going to cut her leg above and below the knee and put in a new joint – like replacing a door hinge. He explained that was not how it was done. He was going to disjoint (OUCH!) the knee, shape the bone ends and then apply a metal facing to renew the wear points. Being a more literal thinking person, that made perfect sense to me.
The pain she is experiencing is from the stretching of the ligaments and the recovery is mostly in that area. As I am typing this she is on an exercise machine pedaling herself toward the wall. She has ‘in-patient’ rehab for a few days then she will be released to in-home rehab.
Hi Terry –
Glad to hear the surgery went well – sympathies to your wife on the pain – I have arthritis in all my joints, but it is the worst in my left knee.
Best wishes to her for a full and speedy recovery!
Wow, thanks for explaining that. I somehow thought the procedure MUST be something other than what it brought to mind (as you had imagined, the whole new hinge hooked up to the bones above and below, owwww!) but it is good to get the actual explanation.
I wish her a speedy complete recovery!
Yes. When they said ‘complete knee replacement’ I thought they would bring a saw of some sort. Thanks for your good wishes!
I have been thinking of her today, wondering how recovery is going.
I remember something an orthopedist told me when I had surgery on my wrist and hand. He said, “Tendons are lazy. If you don’t exercise them, they will become hard to move.”
He didn’t want me favoring the fingers and hand after surgery. Pain or no pain, I had to work them. Given the size of knee tendons compared to those in the fingers and wrist, I can imagine how difficult it must be for her. Empathy is on it’s way at the speed of light!
Spent a good bit of the day there today. She is doing really well walking now, saying the old knee pain when she walked is pretty much gone. The ligament pain is constant but diminishing.
Thanks!