Arthritis and Total Knee Replacement...Part II

Part I Here

My OS had freaked me out, with the wheelchair scenario. I needed to go back into denial where this wasn't a problem. I could function better that way. Who wants to be 37 yrs old and told that YOU will be in a wheelchair.

I did try to help the condition of my knees by keeping my weight down and making sure I got plenty of exercise. In reality, I probably got too much exercise. I was standing and walking for double digit hours each day at work. At the time, I believed the more I used my legs the longer they would keep working. It's hard too say if I helped or hurt my cause.


Time passed and before I knew it, it was 1995. The arthritis had been progressing but manageable. MY hips and back had now begun to be effected. I had been on about every NSAID there was. I would not go back to my OS until I knew that it was time for a surgery.

My memory of arthritis is almost non-existent, between 1995 and 2000. I know it still bothered me and I was still being treated by my PCP for it, but that's all I remember of it during that time frame.

In 1995 I was diagnosed with invasive cancer. It took front and center and all my energy to fight that battle. I must have blocked all else out during those years.

I do know that at some point, after they became available, I was switched from NSAIDS to COX-2 inhibitors. Celebrex. I had been on daily NSAIDS and aspirins for over 20 years. I did pretty good with celebrex. Now and then my Doc. would throw in steroids for a really bad period.


One day, while at work, more than 200 miles from home, I had a repeat of the exact thing that had happened years earlier. I stood up from an office chair and could not walk. I recognized the pain immediately for what it was. No guessing, or periods of optimism, this time. I was finally able to get to my car and drive home. This was in mid 2002. I called the OS after arriving home, and found that he was on vacation, out of the country, for the next three weeks. There is no way I could have waited for over 3 weeks for an appointment. I waited 11 years, but now I couldn't wait 3 weeks. There is a difference between having chronic pain and an acute attack of pain. One that almost completely takes away all mobility. Having pain, I could still go to work and function. Having no mobility I could not do those things.

I could see one of his colleagues at 7:00 am the next morning. He took alot of x-rays and scheduled an MRI of my R knee. It was the opposite knee from the prior surgery. Which meant I had already gotten over 11 years from that little arthroscopic surgery on my L knee. And, I had bought an additional 11 years on the R knee from when the OS had suggested, "the same surgery on your right knee." Eleven years and still no wheelchair.

New OS did the arthroscopic surgery on the right knee. My OS was still not back to work yet....The new one and I had a big discussion about that surgery prior to it being done. I thought that since I was now 50, and this had been going on for a long time, that we should just replace it. Save a surgery! I wasn't crazy about having two surgeries on that knee. I knew that I would still need it replaced, at soem point. He won the argument, by reminding me, of how well and how many years I had gotten from the opposite knee surgery....He told me that nobody gets 11 years from an arthritis arthroscopic surgery, but I sure did.

On June 17th. 2002 I let him do a surgery that I should NOT have agreed too. Below is the surgical report from the R knee surgery...Myself and first OS would be reconnected, but not yet.

Note the change of language from the operative report in 2001, to what it was on the report in 1991. I could almost understand the 91 report but not this one..All I knew was that I had a double chondroplasty and a partial medial menistectomy.


Operative Report;

"Brief History;
She is a 50 year old female.
Her right knee medial meniscus tear, osteoarthritis were the indications for
this operative procedure.

Inspection of the Patellofemoral joint showed grade 3 chondral
changes. A shaver was passed through the anteromedial portal used to perform a
chondrolasty of the patellofemoral compartment. Inspection of the notch showed
the ACL and PCL intact. Inspection of the lateral joint showed grade 2 chondral
changes on the lateral femoral condyle, lateral tibial plateau and lateral
meniscus intact. Inspection of the medial joint line showed a medial meniscus
tear and grade 3 chondral changes on the medial femoral condyle,medial tibial
plateau. Punch and shaver were passed through the anteromedial portal used to
perform a partial medial meniscectomy thus removing the medial meniscus tear. A
shaver was passed through the anteromedial portal used to perform a
chondroplasty of the medial compartment. "


Part III will follow...What happens following this surgery?