- Dressings on a total knee replacement
I’ve just been to hospital to visit my dad who had a total knee replacement on Friday. Despite being an NHS patient he got a choice of hospitals and was able to choose a private one which only has 14 rooms. It’s quite a nice place for a hospital really.
Before my dad is allowed out he has to complete a series of tasks of increasing difficulty, ranging from being able to bend his fancy new knee to going up a set of stairs. We went for a limp around the corridors and his leg didn’t fall off so it seems that with constant gentle exercise it’ll start to work properly; at the moment he complains it’s very stiff and uncomfortable – but not painful, unlike the remains of the knee they removed.
Bruising and tape marks around the site of an epidural
He was telling me about the operation. At the start you get made to sit on the edge of the bed with your knees bent up while an epidural is stuck into you. The sensation of this was described as being like hot water flowing down both legs… After this they rolled him onto the bed and stuck the desired leg up into the air. The strange part is that my dad didn’t know this was going on until he saw his leg in the air – supposedly your brain remembers the position of all your limbs, so when the epidural took effect the last position of his leg was all he could sense. This might be like the phantom limb sensation felt by people with amputated limbs.
Once he’s out and has the dressing off I’ll try to get another photo, there’s a rather interesting line of staples down his knee that I’ll ask him to photograph. He did ask to keep the bits of knee joint they removed, but it seems there’s certain rules about disposing of body parts so they didn’t let him.
