Today's the day

In the waiting room now.

Three days till surgery

This deserves the full-screen treatment, not merely a widget. Sigh. I'm not sleeping. There seems to be so much to do, even with all the prep, and I'm overwhelmed, and I know that's just my mind talking, because actually, I'm in decent shape. I fell asleep at 4 am, though. I wish I'd taken Monday and Tuesday off, but I didn't. I work up to 4 pm on Tuesday. The only reason I'm leaving a half hour earlier than normal is that they're delivering a range of motion machine that Dr Talwalkar prescribed at 5 PM, and I have to be there because they need to do a teaching demo for the daily therapy sessions online. I've been doing all the laundry this weekend except my bedding, which I'll do Tuesday, so I'll go straight into clean bedding from the cleansing you do the night before surgery. Otherwise, I'm gonna to do some practising with the stairs and my bed, my PT exercises, get my room in order, test or ask the assistive aids and the cold therapy machine. I also want to get a haircut today and return my old phone (I upgraded from my Samsung Galaxy Flip4 to a Flip7 for the cost of taxes and activation fee with half a terabyte of storage... I couldn't pass it up.) And of course, there's my Sunday chores, which I won't be doing for a while. That's enough for today, isn't it?

10 Days Out

I've done everything I can think of to prepare. I've read two books for patients written by orthopaedic surgeons to learn what to expect. I've read one written by a patient about recovery. I've bought assistive aids from elevated toilet seats to glides for the back legs of my walker that act as brakes when pushed down. I have all of them collected in my closet except for my shower chair, which is in the car trunk and some water bottles, which are in the utility room, ready to be frozen for my cold therapy machine. I've made appointments for physical therapy for both prehab (home exercise to strengthen my knee before surgery) and post-op rehab, and an appointment for delivery of a range of motion machine to be delivered the evening before surgery. I have my instructions for eating, taking meds, drinking my Gatorade G2 prior to surgery, cleansing and disinfecting, and for filling out my pre-surgery instruction pass to on the day of the surgery. The only thing I don't know is the time to arrive, something I won't know until the day before. I have someone who has graciously agreed to be my driver that day and pick me up after the observation when I'm discharged the next day. My roommate will also be there during the surgery.

So I think we're set.

I'm nervous, but not really anxious, which is REALLY good for me.

And I think it's hilarious that it's going to be robot-assisted by Rosa Robot. Apparently, at Baptist, all the surgical robots have names, and each surgeon prefers certain ones. Dr

Talwalkar must like Rosa. I'm looking forward to meeting Rosa.

Wish me luck.

14 Days to Go

Two weeks and counting... This is getting more real. I have my first three PT appointments scheduled, too.

This surgery is coming up quickly

The date's been set, July 30th.  My pre-op is July 17th.  My work is trying to figure out about getting a temp, so the idea is to get FMLA for 12 weeks since there will be two surgeries, one right after the other, first on the left knee, the second on the right. I've applied for FMLA/Short-Term Disability through our vendor, New York Life, but I can't activate the claim until a week before.  So I'm just focusing on trying to get everything ready at home, assistive aids, that sort of thing.  I've even ordered glides for the back of my walker that work like tennis balls with the wheels as far as gliding, but when you put them down, they act as brakes.  I ordered them through eBay.  The nice thing is I'm still avoiding Amazon, but they came in an Amazon package because the seller does so much business through Amazon. :)

Anyway, I am very nervous, but I'm trying not to be.  I'm trying to just prepare as much as I can. I've read what I can.  I have:

• A leg lifter
• A raised toilet seat
• A sock aid (left over from the rotator cuff surgery)
• A shoehorn tool (left over from the rotator cuff surgery)
• A bed rail (left over from the rotator cuff surgery)
• a wedge pillow (left over from the rotator cuff surgery)
• A cold therapy machine (left over from the rotator cuff surgery)
• A steel quad cane (I already had it, left over from when I was over 300 lbs. and I needed something sturdy that could support that weight)
• My regular collapible aluminum cane
• A walker with wheels and the aforementioned glides, plus an organiser/bag for carrying stuff, including my handicapped parking placard so my driver can park near the entrance of my appointment buildings

There is a device that's supposed to be delivered to my home called ROMTech, which is a range-of-motion bike I'll use during recovery as well.

I hope this all helps.

WOW!

Got this oddly specific rundown of the cost of my knee replacement surgery from Baptist on MyChart today, along with the reassurance that due to my insurance my estimated cost was only my out-of-pocket, $1,500, of which $150 is my deductible. What Baptist doesn't mention is that I have met both, so in actuality, everything should be covered 100% or outright denied, out of network, etc. hopefully with none of the latter. But wow, that's just the one surgery, and there will be a second one on the other knee, and I'm supposed to be at least overnight in the hospital for observation, if not admitted. I tell people I work for my benefits as well as our mission. I don't lie about that.