Knee Status 6 Weeks Out

SUMMARY: The new one is very good. But the technology isn't perfect.

From a Facebook post March 9.

!!! TO DO: UPLOAD PHOTOS !!!

Went in for my 6 1/2 week check-up today (March 9) with the surgery department. I'm happy happy happy with my new knee!

Per them: X-rays look perfect. Surgery scar looks perfect. Pain is very minor today. 

Side note: About 3 days ago, the knee started into constant low-level pain.
Icing didn't help, even though it always did til now.
(Multiple tries.) Acetaminophen and NSAID didn't help.
After a day and a half, finally gave up after bedtime and took
one remaining reserved heavy-duty pain pill. Knee has been pretty good since.
That has been the first time in all these weeks that I've had a problem with pain.

Takeaways:

• Walk as much as I want, let pain be my guide. 
• Don’t expect to ever do much running on it. (As in: dog agility..., hmm, we'll see... . Certainly not jogging. But I didn't anyway, so that's OK.)
• Don’t expect to ever be getting down on my knee; maybe briefly if it’s absolutely necessary, but not on a regular basis and not for very long.
  (As in: Gardening. Pulling weeds. Laying brick pathways for which I  have bricks stored up. Getting under desk to where wiring for everything goes. Scrubbing textured kitchen/hallway floors. Cleaning spots on the carpet. Many varieties of household tasks (e.g., I replaced the slide-out drawer in a kitchen cabinet last year. HAD to be on my knees.) Cleaning dog vomit from the back of a large soft crate. So many things I'm used to doing on my knees!)
• Expect that everything should be about as healed and healthy as it’s going to get after a year or so. (A *YEAR* or so?!)

Front of knee. They replaced the ends of my bones with surfaces made of chrome, titanium, and something, cemented in place, then put a pad in between to replace the cartilage that hasn’t been there for a very long time.
Some kind of plasticky stuff.

Side: and, yes, that’s my original patella hanging out at the front of my knee.

And I’m apparently in good hands: Team physicians of the San Jose Sharks? Here at this facility or at a different Kaiser? Those men take a beating, so if they can fix them, they can fix me, is the message.