A Whole New Woman!

I talked about this a bit on the old Shuffle yesterday, but I thought I'd pause and give a bit more attention to my Mom's surgery last week!

You may or may not remember that back in February, Mom had a hip replacement. She knew she had bad knees, and she thought they needed replaced, but when she met with the doctor, she learned it was actually her hip that was in the worst shape and it needed replaced first.

So she had that done (her first really major medical procedure ever in life, and she was eighty years old!) and recovered quite nicely. Well, nicely except the fancy new hip really accentuated those silly knees! Hard to be able to enjoy shiny new toys like hip replacements when your knees are still a mess!

And that's how it came to be that she decided to talk with the doctor about knee replacements. I don't know how they do things in your neck of the woods, but here in our fine city, they don't do double knee replacements. One at a time? Yes. Two at once? Not here. You usually have to go out of town for that. But Mom told the surgeon she knew if she went in for just one, she might never go back for the second. (And honestly, I can't quite blame her!)

So in an amazing turn of events that no one really saw coming, the surgeon agreed to do both knees at once, and that's how it came to be that last Tuesday morning, Mom went into the hospital for two brand new knees!

The surgery took just over three hours, and when the doctor came to meet with us, he said she did really well! I guess she was in pretty bad shape, but she should be quite fixed up now!

Side note: this doctor has about the best bedside manners of ANY doctor I have ever encountered in my life. Always smiling, always kind to take time to go over whatever questions you have. I'm impressed. I'm generally a white-coat syndrome kind of girl, but this guy is pretty much the best.

Dad was so cute: when they said they were about to bring her out and take her to her room, he went immediately to the hallway with the view of the door and stood to make sure he didn't miss her. It was a good twenty minutes before she actually appeared, but he did not budge. He was so anxious to see her!

One day post-op, she was up and looking just about normal!

They had her up and walking right away, and she was moving. They said she was a great patient, working hard to get well. (That's because she wanted to move right along in her healing.)

By Friday, she was released from the hospital, and I drove her to her next stop at the rehab hospital! (Don't worry. We were safely at a stoplight for this photo.)

So all of that to say, she's doing REALLY well with the knees themselves. She's actually blowing the minds of the medical staff with her range of motion, her desire to walk instead of ride in a wheelchair, and her wit. But getting up and down are still really hard for her, since both legs hurt.

Plus, you know, two major operations in eight months is kind of a lot for anyone, especially someone of her (ahem) seasoned status. So she's battling some fatigue too. (Factor in, of course, that NO ONE sleeps well in hospitals.)

So if she comes to your mind and you want to join us in praying for her strength, endurance, and healing, she wouldn't turn that down!

And we're all glad it's not a week ago today! :)