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Next Tuesday, July 9, I'm going into hospital to have my right knee removed and replaced with a mechanical one. Provided that there are no complications, they tell me to expect to be in hospital about 5 days, plus possibly another week in a rehabilitation hospital if becoming able to walk and climb stairs doesn't progress fast enough to allow me to go home after 5 days.

The prospect of surgery is scary. My incontinence is the result of a surgical misadventure when I was 14 years old. So I'm naturally pretty apprehensive about what might go wrong this time. This will also be my first extended hospital stay in more than 30 years. Thirty-five years ago, the hospital kept me in cloth diapers after I wet the bed a couple if time. This time, of course I'll be in disposables. I hope that they will let me wear my Abenas that I will bring in from home. But if they insist that I wear whatever the hospital provides, I'll have to go along with it.

Wish me luck! And if you're religious, I would also appreciate a prayer.

I had my right knee replacement done in February, and it was very easy. They had me trying to stand on that new knee 4 hours out of surgery. My surgery was done on a Friday and I came home Sunday. My bedroom is on the second floor, and I used the stairs as part of physical therapy. FWIW, I was 54 at the time and had destroyed my knees ten years earlier with Tae Kwon Do and weight lifting. It took me that long to convince my orthopod that I was not too young for the operation.

The replacement surgery is very well choreographed, and has many jigs associated with it to insure that the bones mate up correctly with the artificial joint surfaces. An orthopedic surgeon will usually book up all his/her surgeries for one or two days a week, and spends about 25 minutes on each one. If you are not squeamish about such things, there are some great videos explaining the procedure on YouTube.

My own recovery took 5 weeks before I was back in the office, and flying a week later. It's now been 5 months, and my knee feels better at the end of the day than it had before the surgery. I'm down to 4-6 ibuprofen a day, about a third of my pre-surgery dosage. Fear not, this surgery will be a very good thing for your quality of life. Yes, you will be in my prayers.

Report back to us in a week or two and let us know how you are doing.

One more thing to add; nobody can hear your knee clunking but you. I've been told that the noise will diminish as the tendons tighten up around the knee joint, but I suspect that I will just grow used to it. Clunks and rustles.

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- Tom