Update to Knees, Knees, Knees

2018-3-10

I am going to do a retrospective review of my knee issues because it might be helpful to other people. I plan to pull my notes of:
- treatments and problems prior to surgery
- my experience with double knee replacement surgery
- my experience with MRSA
- my recuperation after all of the above and current status

Simplification for the customer can be difficult to achieve - LOL!!

In an effort to be efficient in my new role, I made what I thought would be a simple decision. I would eliminate my desk phone and have all my work calls routed direct to my work cell phone. I felt that would allow my customers, friends, etc., to be able to get to me more quickly. Our corporate system requires that a "ticket" be put in for a phone (even though I am in charge of the dept that will work on putting the phone in). Took a while to find the right form for the ticket to submit, but I found it, filled it out, and submitted it - noting that our personnel on site knew what was required and the request should just be routed directly to them. I got an automated response that the ticket had been accepted by someone in another city to handle. This person - let's call him JB - said that he needed all kinds of information in order to handle this ticket like what kind of phone I wanted, etc. I sent him a note indicating that I already had someone who knew how to handle the ticket and that if he would just forward the request, this request could be completed. And so the dance began....he told me that he was responsible for the ticket completion, I give the email to the person in my group who was going to handle the request, they talk back and forth, my person goes on vacation, his replacement picks up the work, etc. After waiting almost 2 weeks for what used to take an afternoon, success!! I had an extension that, when called at the plant, would ring on my cell phone. This morning I got my very first call. Turns out that they had disconnected another manager's extension (good old JB somewhere else!!) and given it to me so I was now getting calls for another manager. But, all's well that ends well, only took another half day - because now everyone has practiced what to do - and I now have a working phone that routes to my cell phone. I won't even go into how the work phone system will only transfer locally, but my work cell is from another city so I have to route the plant number to my 2nd home line and route that to my work cell. Who would have thought that forwarding calls could be so complicated???

Knees, knees, knees

Wow, what a good education I've had in the last couple of years about how old pain can make you feel. About 2 years ago, I had pain in first one and then the other ankle. It was diagnosed as achilles tendonitis - which my doctor said primarily occurred in runners. I must be running marathons in my dreams because I never run. Well, physical therapy actually got that one under control. Routine stretching (every day) now keeps it in check.

Then my knee was painful and swelled. My pimary care physician did the protocol (first pain relief, then MRI) and sent me to an orthopedic My husband got me in to see his orthopedic (he's a frequent flyer in the orthopedic sky). Once there, I got an x-ray and an unexpected "Come on down and pick behind door number 1 (cortizone and gel), door number 2 (arthroscopic), or door  number 3 (complete knee replacement)." We'll be keeping door number 3 closed as long as possible.

I opted for cortizone since we were going to Disney, but since then have gone with the less joint distroying gel. I have now had the second of a series of 3 injections. This second one has really brought some relief. I don't think I realized how much I was avoiding walking. This feels much more like everyday life. I hope this round of injections will last 6 months because right now I am really liking them.

Sept 7, 2009

Never got back to the blog. Summary of some of the things I learned in Europe:
- they must not have all the lawyers that we have in the States (good thing) because they have all kinds of things that we wouldn't have because we'd get sued (steps with no handrails, windows with no screens to allow people to fall out, etc.); I can only conclude that they are ok if people who do something stupid like lean out an open window and fall are removed from the gene pool - lol
- I actually do miss the ADA laws because it is much harder for disabled people to get around in Europe ( or it seemed so to me); I saw so few disabled people - 2 in 6 weeks of time; they had lots of walkways, but the walkways could be very uneven
- I loved how the neighborhoods were set up to allow you to walk to everything - things were very close to each other
- beautiful little landscaping - lots of people to maintain it; don't know how that works, but I loved the vines growing over everything concrete along the sides of the roads
- lots of recycling centers setup to allow dropoffs of small amounts
- lots of ugly yellow used in buildings in Geneva - otherwise a beautiful little town
- lots of cities we hear about in the USA, like Geneva and Montreux, are actually fairly small; Geneva only had about 70000 people living there
- lots of use of trains and buses - which run on time and on electricity (gotta love that)
- scooters and motorcycles rule the road - running right by cars that could KILL them
- Montreux has a world famous jazz festival, but only has about 20000 people who live there; apparently the Alps, and Lake Geneva are a bigger draw than a small town in the USA would have :)

These are my notes for so far.

April 28, 2009

Just got back from Europe (for work and vacation). It was a lot of fun - spent most of my time in Geneva working 12 hour days (the other people worked longer - I just didn't think that made any sense - lol). Will plan on providing a retrospective update of the visit on this blog.