Wednesday, November 12, 2008

11.12.08

For Those Who Are Wondering:

My dad went into have double knee replacement surgery on Monday morning. The surgery went smoothly. They were concerned about his heart condition, but there were no complications at all. They said his knees were completely shot. After football, skiing, biking and just everyday wear and tear there wasn't much of anything left. The Dr.'s were shocked with the amount of muscles in his thighs. They also said he has extremely hard bones... usually it takes one saw to get through two knees but they had to use two.
Monday after the surgery they gave him an epidural-like shot which numbed him from the waist down. Yesterday (Tuesday) I went in to see him about one o'clock and I've never seen him in such pain. He could hardly speak. He felt like the pain medication they had him on wasn't strong enough. He felt like his legs were on fire. He was nauseated and having a hard time eating. I stayed until about 5pm. Two physical therapists came in. They had him stand up and take a few steps. The pain on his face looked excruciating. I thought to myself, "A few months ago we were cheering him on during his one hundred mile mountain bike race and now he's standing there barely able to shuffle a few steps with a walker"... pretty crazy. I think he had a pretty bad night last night. They have his legs working on machines 3 hours each leg each day, so 6 hours total. They also have things pumping his feet to prevent blood clots. The Dr's said hardly anyone does two knees at one time. In the last year they've only seen 3 people do it. He'll be in the hospital until Thursday. It's going to be months of recovery but day by day he'll get through it. It will be a long winter without skiing, but I told him I'd hang out with him.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your dad is a brave guy. I hope he is drinking his "New-Knee" juice my dad gave him so he can start feeling better. :)

whit said...

WOW!! Hang in there Larry! We are thinking of ya! Hayley I had a dream last night that I went crib shopping with you, we actually found a really cute one!

Unknown said...

Gosh sounds painful. We'll pray for him and hopefully he recovers soon!

Natalie said...

I had no idea. That's tough, it's hard to see your parents in pain {& getting older}, isn't it? He is a superman and i'm sure he'll get through it. He'll {& your mom} will be in our prayers.xoxo

allegra said...

i'm so sorry! that must be hard to go through, especially when he's such an active guy. best of luck...

Brooke and Ben said...

Hayley! Congrats on the expected little one! The first part is always the roughest for me. Have you been sick?
My husband Ben has had knee surgery twice on the same knee since we have been married, and after being through that, I would hate to think of what a total knee replacement would be like.

Carli said...

I hope he is feeling better. I can remember when my dad got in that bad accident and was down for almost one year, it was horrible!

coco said...

good thing for blogs otherwise i'd never hear about anything going on. i had no idea your dad was having surgery--what a pain. glad everything went well, sad that he's in such pain. how miserable. what does he like that we could bring him? we just found out boston has to have his third surgery in a few weeks. surgery sucks.