My Total Knee Replacement: In the beginning.....

BSU family + photobomb guy

I'm pretty amazed that I am even at this point right now. A fabulous 30-something and one week away from a total knee replacement. Was I a star athlete? Did I injure my knee running up and down stairs saving puppies from a burning building? Nope. To put it plainly, it is a bit of Darwinism mixed with my normal workouts. As a matter of fact, if you see me running you should run too because something fierce is chasing me. I'm not a runner.

Okay, so some bad genetics (when in doubt blame your mama) handed me some brittle cartilage and a dash of some random autoimmune disease. The beginning of our story takes place on a lovely summer evening in my front yard when I gracefully leapt over our sprinkler so I wouldn't get my socks wet to turn the damn thing off. You should have seen this leap. Gorgeous. When I landed I felt a pop and crazy pain. This was my cartilage popping off my knee. I was barely able to hobble back inside and called hubby to tell him I think I did something bad. This falls into the classification of "go big or go home." Never half-ass anything.

Here we are 14 months later and I am ready to say goodbye to this busted joint. Replacing the joint of someone so young and spry like myself is no small feat. Seriously, this is last resort-ville. This knee has been MRI'd, scoped, injected, braced, therapied, and injected some more. I also shopped around for the perfect doctor. I saw 3 other orthopedists before I settled on the one that I felt totally comfortable handing over this life changing surgery. Enter: Dr. Ron Kristensen. 

As a nurse I can tell you that if you are going to have a big surgery, ask around. It's easier in the nursing world because we not only know people familiar with a docs work, but we get observe their personality too. Mucho important. There is nothing worse than figuring out your doctor is great at what he does, but so socially awkward that you are wondering if he is going to start speaking Elvish at any moment. I cannot stress enough that you need to interview the people who are going to be taking care of you. After asking around, Dr. Kristensen's name kept popping up and I am so glad I had kept shopping. Not only is he known for his mad skills, but you can actually have a conversation with him and not feel like you are afraid to make eye contact. Perfect!

Part of my research was finding other younger people who have had total knee replacements. What I found was, well, not a lot. Most of the information out there was geared toward the geriatric side of life. This inspired me to start a little blog of the down and dirty, what the hell really happens, non-sugar coated view into my knee replacement. Enjoy.