Reflections

In conversation around the meal table last week I was reminded that these few weeks in the clinic are just the start of the recovery process - people who leave are told they have at least another month's convalescence, no driving and no housework.

 At the beginning of last week I could see it might be a long haul.  After a week with anti-inflammatories (ketoprofen) they were stopped on Monday and the pain returned especially at night and in the mornings.  You can never quite predict where around the knee it will show up.  It's rather like the tribe of rather plump cats that live outside the clinic, appearing on seats and on the grass from all angles.  They arrive silently but all of a sudden they are firmly, smugly there.  I quite like the idea of pain having independent personalities, a cross between the sneaky and the smug.  It diverts attention at any rate from the discomfort ranging to agony of the pains themselves.

Both in hospital and now in the clinic I've taken interest in the painkillers and so on I'm given.  For the past 8 years with arthritis I have had Lamaline prescribed, in hospital it was Dolipran, once I reached the clinic it was back to the GP prescription for Lamaline.  Both are mostly paracetamol by different names.  I'd tried morphine a couple of times at bad moments but found it made my head spin and did not help me to sleep at all.  But once I'd discussed the pain and discomfort with the doctor, she changed the prescription completely to a paracetamol/codeine mixture (similar to the paracodol I've used for many years without prescription in the UK) which I know helps me sleep, as well as reinstating the anti-inflammatory ketoprofen.  Within a day the pain had more or less gone and the swelling had started to reduce far more quickly.

Quite quickly, as the pain decreased and flexibility and strength increased, our little group for 'collective gym' started more demanding exercises, not just bending the knee and practising walking over little circuits of jumps (like they use in dog shows!) but going up and down stairs and waling increasingly uneven circuits in the grounds when the weather allowed.  Although you can criticise the lack of good disabled access around the building, the physios use the uneven paths and rough ground to help us get used to walking on different kinds of surface.  By the end of last week, 3 weeks after the operation, I had walked comfortably round a rough path above the clinic and began to feel things were really moving on.

The inside of the clinic is as I've said quite well arranged with plenty of space in corridors and enough even in shared rooms, but like all spacious corridors the less-used bits get filled with junk - supposedly open sitting spaces are repositories for broken bedsteads, and wheelchairs accumulate as if having small impromptu meetings.  It is all a bit bare and echoing though they try and make it feel nice with pictures etc.

Now, back for another week after a nice weekend at home, I need to adapt to the 'boarding school' life again and hope my exercise programme earns me an early release!  Above all, I'll need to find a way of sleeping longer here.

The terrace and garden, showing my room in the group beyond the dining room and lounge