One Year After Surgery

I didn't want to hear it at the time, especially as I had opted for a partial knee replacement, but it did take close to a year to achieve what Dr. Wang described as the goal of surgery:  to return patients to their normal daily activity. 

In addition to daily push ups (100) and sit ups (300) I usually bike six miles every weekday morning, weather permitting; I swim 3/4 of a mile three times a week; and I walk at least 4.5 miles three times a week.  Taking off Sundays, except for half as many sit ups and push ups,  is part of my "new normal" at age 72.

Thanks to a daily 15 mg dose of Meloxicam, I'm able to do this without much pain, although there's still stiffness in my right knee at night.  I take the medication as much for other arthritic joints as my knees.

But since early December, I've been living in Florida where I haven't had to climb up two flights of stairs several times a day, sometimes carrying my bike, or ride my bike to shop for groceries twice a week, or to use the laundromat every three weeks.  We'll see if I can maintain this level of activity when I return to Manhattan on Tuesday and the increased difficulty (and noise!) of solo urban life renews.

As they say in real estate:  location, location and location.  I suspect I may have to adjust my routine if I want to continue occupying 47 Pianos for much of the year, as I have done since 1978.

Officially Old

I ride my bicycle to my first and only appointment at Riverside Orthopedics.  Welcome to assembly-line medicine.  Elias Kassapidis, MD seems competent enough, instantly diagnosing me with osteoarthritis in the right knee and hip as soon as he takes a look at my x-rays.  He observes that my right hip joint is more oval-shaped than the left one, a congenital defect.  As a result, my cartilage cushion is nearly worn away, thus producing the pain that sent me here.  Although he can't pinpoint if my worn knee or hip is more responsible, he outlines a course of treatment for both that includes painkillers, injections and eventual surgery.  He suggests that the prognosis is good because I'm active and obviously fit for my age, but he admits that I probably never will run again, something I had to give up years ago because of knee pain.

After prescribing meloxicam, an anti-inflammatory drug, Dr. Kassapidis observes that the shoes I'm wearing, sneakers, are likely to produce less pain that those with harder soles.  When I express concern about living alone and having to climb up 2 flights of stairs post-surgery if I decide to go that route, he blithely responds that in such cases, patients are typically sent to a rehab facility like NYU's Rusk Center.  He also mentions that 10,000 New Yorkers have joint replacements annually.

At 57, I am officially old in a way that I wasn't when I received my first invitation to join AARP.  The good news:  GHI covers the cost of the entire visit, including X-rays, aside from a $20 co-pay.