Back to the TKR:
I was doing rather well - and the wounds were looking really good - see pic below. This photo was taken on 11 December, one week after the op, the first time the dressing was changed (is it not beautiful!!):
In fact I was doing so well that my physician and physio suggested I go to a step-down facility. If you don't know, a step-down facility still looks like a hospital facility but the care is less intensive and you are encouraged to do more for yourself. The centre I went to also caters for rehabilitation patients, especially Alheimers, cardiac and stroke patients and patients who have lost limbs. My knee guy on the other hand did not think it was the right place for me but he was eventually convinced.
He was right though - as I said to him at our first consultation, if I had his mobile number I would have phoned him during the night to come rescue me!!!!
I hated most of the step-down experience but on the other hand, it motivated me to work really hard to get out of there as soon as possible.
I felt really emotional when I left the hospital - Ward E's staff at Panorama Hospital are absolutely amazing!!! I was thrilled to discover that Discovery Medical Aid had a discretionary Care Programme for rehab patients, which covers reasonable costs of the rehab process. This is a major, major, major benefit. They covered the step-down facility and out-of-hospital physio sessions - awesome!!!
Panorama Hospital arranged to take me through to the step-down facility. I won't mention their name - don't want to give them more publicity than needed, but if you want information, contact me!
Sadly, I hated most of my time at the step-down facility. They do awesome work but I did have the following problems:
- I was placed in a room with three elderly ladies, two of whom had dementia. I hardly had any sleep the first night as one of the patients was a stroke patient who had come in during the afternoon. They insisted she use an adult nappy as they had not assessed her yet. They would not take her to the loo or give her a bedpan. We are taught from small not to wet our pants - and then, at her age, she was being told to just lie there and void herself, in her pants. Furthermore, they told her to ring the bell when necessary - but she was unable to do so because of the stroke - she could not reach the bell or push the button. This poor woman was extremely stressed because she had an uncomfortably full bladder, could not get any relief and could not ring the bell. Her solution: she kept thumping her arm against the bed trying to attract attention so that someone else in the room would ring the bell - which was me, because I was lying semi-awake in pain and the sleeping pill had no effect. The first night was awful - I was really sore and I was constantly being woken by a very frustrated patient. Thank heavens on Thursday morning they moved me to a room at the other end of the centre where my fellow-patient was about my age and also had knee problems - why could they not have done this from the start?!!!!!
- The food was horrible - same caterers as Panorama Hospital so therefore cannot understand why it was so bad. My first dinner (served at about 5.30 pm) was hard carrots, musty rice and something that was supposed to be curried mince - I think ;
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| My first meal at the Stepdown Clinic |
- They refused to give me the medication prescribed by my doctor as it could be habit-forming and gave me something else which was not as effective. Furthermore it took ages for my medication to arrive which meant that I had a longer stretch between medication (there's a pharmacy downstairs but they order from a pharmacy two blocks away!) Thank heavens I found some Stilpayne in my bag and self-medicated throughout the night just trying to cope with the pain. Big note here - especially in the beginning, take your medicine as prescribed - wait too long and it takes ages to get the pain back under control;
- My knee guy had insisted that the dressings are not to be removed till our first appointment - but the step-down clinic's doctor insisted on removing the dressings and replaced them with an inferior quality product which meant that the dressings constantly peeled off.
BIG NEWS! They're wrong!!! With a little persistance and much repetitive exercise, I mastered the flight of stairs in one morning - I had to, I wanted to get out of there asap. They reckoned I'd be there a week - I reckoned much, much less.
Timeline:
- Admitted Wednesday afternoon - lousy dinner so ate a slab of chocolate left by a visitor; Awful night - but best thing was that the only "disabled" toilet (i.e. one with the necessary handles to drag yourself up off the loo) was quite some way down the passage - I got a fair amount of exercise Wednesday evening;
- Thursday morning - saw the doctor, who promptly removed my dressing despite the specialist's request not to; horrible breakfast, ate nothing; I was moved to a new room; taught how to climb stairs (NOTE TO SELF: there is no right way, only a suggested way - adapt whatever method works best for yourself); taught how to shower and how to use a toilet that does not have the necessary "handicap" handles; walked more, climbed stairs; physio session - informed all I was leaving the next day - they laughed saying I would likely be there for another week as I had to first pass the checklist; Worked even harder;
- Friday morning had the best meal ever at the facility (suggested by my roommate - muesli & yoghurt)!!! Told all I was ready to do the check-out evaluation ... did it twice to convince them and left at midday!!! YAY!!!!!
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