Wow, you go away for three months and have your knee replaced . . . . . . .

and the way customers react you'd think you were gone forever. Gives you a nice feeling though to know that the customers you serve, that have to give you money for their food, are so happy to see you back.


OnFeb. 23rd I worked my last day for a while. Finally I was getting surgery on my knee. So on the 25th I was in the operating room sitting on the edge of the table and looking at all this paraphernalia that may or may not be going into or used on my leg. I tell you, if they'd have given me some premed and then I saw the way they were dressed I'd have suspected I was abducted by aliens. Or beekeepers.

It was very interesting and I wish I'd had my camera. Saws and drills, nuts and bolts, gidgets and gadgets, glue and drapes, and tourniquets and hemostats!  Plus I'd say at least ten people in there. And right off the bat the anesthetist disagrees with something the doctor wants to do. No fighting guys, still awake here.

I stayed off work until the first week of May. The first day back I was so surprised at how easy it was to stand at the register for that long. I had not realized before then how much pain I must have been in. I blew through the four hours and no problems with the next day. Or the next shift either. The surgery has been such a success that I can now notice how bad the left leg was/is and wonder how it has stood up. It started to get more and more bothersome as time went on so that by my 12 week follow up I have signed up to get the left one replaced as well. Several reasons really:

I'd forgotten how nice it is to walk any distance at all!
I want to walk straighter. Right now, because I was so used to favouring both knees I sometimes lose balance or weave when I walk. Sort of like a drunken sailor.
I am able to walk up AND down stairs and hills with hardly any problem.
I can also go down stairs frontwards again. (used to be backward as it puts a lot less strain on the knees)

FOOTNOTE: Apparently the blogs should be shorter. It keeps people's interest better or something. So I will try to do that and I have a new list of characters that will be appearing periodically until they are fired or quit.

Next time around: the Diva