op

It is the morning after the day of my op on my both of my knees. I had arthroscopies of my knees to clean them up - it is called wash out and debridement. This means that they went in with the long rods through small holes in either side of my knees to take a look and rinse out any little bits of debris with water and to trim off any bits hanging off which might get caught in the knee bones and cause pain. The op went smoothly and I was in and out in one day. Andy managed to tear himself away from a 24 hour stint at work to drop me off and pick me up from the hospital. Alice thankfully helped me upstairs and was very gentle in helping me get comfortable in bed. Slept well as I was pretty tired. Woke up in pain though. After waiting for someone to get some tea and toast for me so I could take some painkillers, gave up waiting and struggled downstairs on my own. It took 45 minutes to get downstairs, make some tea and toast and take my tablets and hobble back up stairs again. Have brought some biscuits upstairs so I don't have to wait next time!

The left knee hurts me, the doctor said that it was the worst one. I had said that my right knee was more symptomatic and they have washed it out, but I dont think it needed anything more than that. They have trimmed the left knee, which is why it probably hurts more.

I was looking at youtube videos of knee arthroscopies and came across an American study which said that they did some fake and real arthroscopies (double blind to avoid skewing the results) and it turns out that those who had had the fake arthroscopies felt much better and no longer in pain. The mind is an amazing thing. I think if I remain positive about the outcome and work very hard to mobilise properly again I should have a very good result from this op. I hope to be able to walk further and even go cycling again. And maybe next summer walk up Mount Snowdon again. That is my ultimate aim; to walk up the mountain without half killing myself doing it!!!

At least being home for three weeks will give me plenty of time to do my hobbies such as swap bot and digital scrapbooking, as usually I don't get a great deal of time to do these. It does mean though that I can't go geocaching for a while, but hopefully when I do, I can walk around without too much discomfort.