The Beginning...it is finished.

This was going to be my 5^th and I hope final surgery on my left knee since a major injury way back in 1974. With much nervousness I waited in the pre-surgery room.  Waiting, listening to every sound, wondering  when the party was going to start. The worry made every minute seem like 10 the clock wasn’t moving. It was time to get this over with. Finally nurses entered my room and wheeled me out and down the hallway.

The last recollection of consciousness that I have before my knee replacement surgery was being wheeled into what looked like a large room full of tools, lights, machines, and parts on tables. There were people moving about totally covered in masks, goggles, gloves, and surgical garb. I was looking for my doctor. Dr. David Field. I trusted him, I picked him to be the one to cut my old knee out today and replace it with a mixture of alloys and synthetic parts. He was nowhere to be seen. Was he here?

I could tell they must have put some sort of a sedative into my IV drip. Everything became a dream in dream there was nothing to be worried about any longer. The last thing I remember was a man leaned over and introduced himself as my anesthetist and helped me up to sit and lean over some device and place my chin into a cup to help support my leaning position. I knew what he was going to do, he was going insert a syringe between two of my lower vertebras and inject a solution into my lower spine that would totally deaden everything on my body from that point down.  I felt his fingers pushing very hard against my lower vertebras or was it a syringe?

Then all lights, all consciousness left, the butchery started, the saws, drills, scalpels, and trained hands  went to work.   

There was no time gap from that point to now. It seems instantaneous I was laying in the recovery room. It is like waking up from a strange dream, and then going in out of it for the next couple of hours. Slowly the ‘outside world’ becomes the denominate reality. Now I remembered I had knee replacement surgery.

I was wondering how it went as I watched blurry people walk back and forth and talked to each other in words I could not quite understand or could not quite hear. I closed my eyes again and left the room in my mind as somebody shook my arm and called my name. “David” and said “Surgery went well you are in the recovery room.”

I was now starting to think more then I was sleeping. Looking around I could see digital readings on devices around my bed. There were sensors attached to my body letting the medical staff know what was going on inside of me. There was an IV bag dripping fluids into my body through a needle that was taped to my left wrist. I had a catheter in place letting the IV fluids drip back out.

I saw my two feet sticking out of the sheets, no matter how hard I tried to move them, wiggle my toes, nothing moved.

I saw my lady, sitting next to me, that helped comfort me.

I reached under the covers and it felt like I was touching somebody else, it wasn’t me there was no feelings to be felt.

Somehow the day drifted into the evening and evening drifted into the night, I was now alone with my thoughts, listening to hospital sounds, as I drifted in and out of sleep.

I was starting to feel restless, distressful, a spinal tap stops pain totally, but unlike narcotic pain control does not give that calming effect that has become a national addiction dilemma.  I still could not move my legs much and I kept trying to pull myself up, using my arms to try and sit up. Feelings and pain started to show up in my left leg. My leg felt warm and sweaty I thought.

My automated Blood Pressure check started. It automatically starts cuffing my arm every 15 minutes so if I did dose off it wakes me. My blood pressure had been running alarming high, and I was told it was due the pain and trauma involved with surgery. 

This time it topped the charts with the high end being 175 which triggered an alarm at the nurse’s station. A nurse quickly arrives and alarmingly notices there is blood on the edges of the mattress and pulls back the covers we both see I am lying on a blood soaked mattress and my leg gauze is also soaked in blood. A second nurse arrives and my leg wraps are rapidly stripped off. Now we see the source of bleeding. In my moving around the two tubes that were left inside my leg and attached to a pump to help drain excess blood and fluids were pulled out. Blood was burping and one of the nurses applied pressure again the holes in my leg to stop the bleeding.

   

 

ZERO TO 100 (DAY 1)

IT IS FINISHED

Today was the day. Today was the day I thought about 1000s of times over and over again through the years. Today was the day I had my knee replaced after being told 40 years ago after a traumatic injury that this day would arrive.

Up at 4:00 a.m. to scrub my leg with a powerful antibacterial scrubbing solution my surgeon’s office gave me.  Headed to the hospital I found the registration desk and I was asked every question that could be asked about me. Then I was placed in a pre-surgical room and was told to dress in this small front closure only small sheet like looking gown with two strings to tie around the neck. My leg was shaved, an IV started, and blood work drawn. The anesthesia doctor rolled in and suggested that we do a spinal tap. I was thinking that would be the best way to go but I needed to mentioned from a previous injury I had my two lower vertebras fused to my tail bone.  As suspected he said he would not be able to initiate a spinal tap for pain control in that area. But would just move it up notch or two and poke me there so I guess I just get more body parts numb for the same price.

As he leaves the ‘drug nurse’ rolls though the door with about 9 containers of various drugs and proceeded to inject all these foreign substances in my body through my IV.

She leaves closes the door and now my room is empty. Worry, fear, doubt suddenly hit me in the new found silence. The clock on the wall was ticking, ticking, and ticking excruciatingly slow. Each second seemed like a minute as I waited.

Most of what happens next I don’t remember, besides power pain medication I was also given a shot of an amnesia drug.

I do remember sitting in a chair attached to the bed in surgical room leaning over while the anesthesia doc locates a nerve exiting my spinal column for pain control.

My doctor told me later that day the surgery took about twice as long as planned. Previous repairs had left 5 staples and 2 screws which wanted to stay in me. He told my bone was exceptionally hard causing additional time. But now “It is Finished” I finally took the leap, and believing in enjoying life again without knee pain.  

I now sit in my hospital room 26 hours later, I will not be allowed out of bed until sometime tomorrow. Pain is tolerable at this time but I understand that is primarily due to the spinal block I received this morning.

I was told tomorrow physical therapy will start working with and I will learn new profanity. I hope not I don’t need any additional education in that department.

GOOD NIGHT

 



Zero to One Hundred day zero.

I moved all my bikes out of my basement and into the garage. It will be months before I ride them again and they are just crowding and overcrowded basement. Tomorrow I say goodbye to my left knee. It has served me well in spite of a severe injury in 1974 and four repair surgeries over the years. After ripping out ligaments and cartilage I still was able to spend 1000s of hours powerlifting, swimming, running, and cycling over the years. But now the time has come, the last four years my knee has told me when I can ride, how far and how hard I can ride. Yes I did have 126 mile days, grueling hill climbs and 350 mile weeks on the bike this year but I also had weeks and weeks when I could not ride, cortisone shots, days walking with a cane, and hours on the couch with ice bags.

I am compulsive. I have been making notes for weeks in preparation of everything I need to do to get everything ready to make a house livable  when walking is difficult, stairs hurt, and high powered pain killers race through my bloodstream.

My indoor bike waits in the dining room for my return from the hospital for rehab.

 

 

So tomorrow morning a team of medical professionals will remove what remains of my damaged left knee and replace with titanium alloy and polyethylene parts. I am going into this as strong as I can be; I’ve kept bicycling up to this weekend. I am scheduled for 6 weeks of therapy afterwards and my goal is to conquer every challenge my therapists throw at me.

I plan to chronicle my journey, the ups, downs, and everything in between of a cyclist whose goal is to work hard and get back on his bike and ride, one mile at a time until the day I can ride 100 miles again.  Hence the title “0 to 100”

 

 

RUNNING SUCKS BUMPER STICKER

Just teasing Bumper Sticker I had 50 of these printed locally and am selling them on Etsy if anyone is interested.    
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MrDaveyGie?ref=search_shop_redirect

"The Hill"

 

 I am climbing this hill and somehow I feel more alive than I have in a long time. MY heart rate has maxed there is no more, I am peaked, this is my limit. There is no room for any mishap, I must ride perfect or I will be off the bike and pushing it up the hill. My thighs are pounding, I am looking straight down now, not knowing how much of this climb is left I don’t want to know, only the moment is important . I will give everything I have to make it to the top and no one will know but me. That is cycling

 

 

A letter

APRIL FOOLS MOFO..............

MUAHHHHHHHH        :-)

This lil Piggie...

My dog Pitty, riding with the Rock.

 

 

 

My First Baby Picture...

THE HILL I TRIED TO CLIMB....

What goes up.....comes back down....didn't make it......I shall return..