What are you doing now that Christmas is over?

@kjady
I was always ambivalent about this- I delighted in helping people who had legitimate issues, and all of the businesses I worked at had fairly liberal return/refund policies on this day and for a few days afterwards.
I was also a combination of fascinated and irate by and about the multi-various scams and schemes people tried to employ to take unfair advantage of the liberal Boxing Day return policies:
These ranged from trying to return items still labeled with other stores tags, to trying to get a refund for worn-out sneakers that they swore that they were given the day before as a Christmas gift, some were simply stupid or ignorant, and some were convoluted and imaginative.

@shahnm yep, with his sidekick Pinky!

@shahnm was my exact thought. was too tired to post it last night

@shahnm Can I interest you in a gently used Deluxe World Domination timeshare package?
Still in good condition. I thought I would use it more than I did, but it seemed like something always came up during my assigned weeks.

@macromeh Ah well thank you for the offer, but you see I already have one so…

@shahnm I see…

@duodec Ani’t that he Truth!

@duodec @mycya4me
/giphy it’s over

@Pony My grandmother had double knee replacements at 82. Less than six months later she was up for frisbee.

Kneesy peasy.

@Pony i know a number of people who have done this, and they all are back on their feet so soon! despite that being said i’d be freaking out too

@Pony You know Lindsey Vonn had a knee replacement and now she’s ski racing again, right? I hope you heal as well as she has, even if you’re not going to be skiing.

@Pony
Hi Pony, if you’re not doing your ‘prehab’ yet, there’s no time to waste:
https://foothillsrehab.com/blog/10-prehab-exercises-knee-replacement/
I had my left knee replaced in 20210 and had an excellent outcome and easy recovery because I really worked hard to get the supporting muscles in the best shape possible beforehand- [see disclaimer* below].
In fact, my M-I-L was jealous because I was in and out in in less than 4 days total.
Unfortunately, about 5 weeks later, while I was at home rehabbing, I slipped on some water that had spilled on our kitchen floor, and not only ripped open the whole length of the incision, but also dislocated my patella [knee cap], and separated the patellar tendon [at the bottom of the patella].
This led to my knee becoming infected with a staph bacteria [luckily not an antibiotic-resistant strain] which meant that in addition to having the incision re-closed, they had to aggressively wash out the wound. I was placed on IV antibiotics [Abx] [via a PICC at home] for 3 months, and then finished out a year with oral antibiotics 4-times daily.
After that year, I was declared clear of any further evidence of infection and discharged from the infectious disease specialist’s care in early 2011.

*Disclaimer: To be fair, I was in some amount of increased risk of having all those bad things happen when I fell because I had had extensive surgery on that femur when I was 19 y/o to treat bone cancer- including along with excision of the tumor and a bone graft, a fair amount of my quadricep muscle overlying the tumor was also removed, and then I ended up fracturing it at the graft site a month later.

FWIW, I was over 50 when I had the knee replacement, so it had been healed for a long before.

TLDR version: Pre-hab now!
Then don’t worry, have your surgery, and then pursue rehab aggressively, and be really really careful to avoid falls and other ways that you can re-injure yourself in the weeks and months post-op.

Finale- my “cleared” infection returned like a tsunami in 2014 causing sepsis, so for my 55th birthday, I had my knee explanted [removed and Abx-laced bone cement put in its place], went on IV Abx for 4 months, and then got my new and current knee implanted in 9/2014- and no further problems occurred.

Now, I’m looking at my right knee being replaced in due time, and despite the trials and tribulations associated with my first one, I would/will have no hesitation about going in for that.

As always, this is not to be construed as medical advice, and YMMV.

@Pony It almost always goes well without complications or problems. As noted above, it restores people to much better functioning and a major life improvement. After this, you will be less likely to fall, so less likely to get a fracture or a head injury. The most important part of the surgery is to do all of the physical therapy afterwards to insure full motion (you can’t do it alone). Although you do not really need it, I’ll wish you good luck anyway!

@Pony They have come a long way in the last 50 years. In most places you go home the same day and are up and about quickly. You don’t have that monster rehab time that the old school devises had.

@PhysAssist @Pony And PhysAssist shows you how much it has changed in just 15 years, not even the 50 I said below.
Most people I saw in my last couple years in home health were home the same day, as I said. A few with medical issues stayed overnight. I have seen a significant decrease in post op complications (probably because of recovery at home, LOL)

And well shit does happen. A fall like that can really mess crap up.

My nursing advice
Don’t discount anything you feel afterward, Assert yourself if you think something doesn’t look or feel right (not very often but surgeons have egos and ortho surgeons have super-egos)

Expect you back early February saying it was much easier than you expected

@tweezak so true for me too!

@tweezak Nailed it.

@tweezak

@unksol Am I supposed to understandf what you wrote, or do I need to be part of a specific industry or have an MBA?

@andyw @unksol
Same questions as although I had some ideas about what you were saying, but no idea if they were at all valid or related.

@OnionSoup Wise choice - doing it in that order will keep the flow moving smoothly.