The knee injury I wrote about last month turned out to be rather worse than I (or my GP) had anticipated. I hadn't just torn cartilage, it turned out: I had both a medial meniscus tear and a partial tear of my anterior cruciate ligament.
Worse, though, was the damage done by a couple of decades of osteoarthritis. Whatever abilities I might have developed for dealing with chronic pain, they weren't going to be enough to help me deal with this. Nor, said the surgeon, was there any point in trying to repair the cartilage, since the joint was so damaged there was hardly any cartilage left to repair.*
So he junked the entire knee and replaced it with an implant.
Everything you've ever read or heard about the pain following on a total knee replacement turns out to be absolutely true. My surgery was on 3 March and a week and a half later I was still pretty much bed-bound, taking massive amounts of opiates, and not capable of doing much of anything. To my surprise I haven't even been able to read for more than a few minutes at a time.
On the other hand, the idea that I could go from diagnosis to surgery in the space of a month is pretty remarkable. So I'm trying to keep my whining and complaining to a minimum. Which is why you're unlikely, Gentle Reader, to be seeing anything from me on this blog for the next several weeks. Or months. Certainly creative is the last word I'm going to be applying to myself for some time yet.
*His exact words were "Your tires are bald. [Referring to the destruction of the lubricating cartilage.] We aren't going to be able to deal with this just by changing your oil." Might not have been the best analogy but I got his point nevertheless.
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