Knee Replacement 8: Tackling the Block

You expect the first couple of days after knee replacement surgery to be a nightmare of pain and suffering, sleepless nights, endless days. And they were. I crutch from bed to couch and back to bed, slowly and painfully, with occasional stops at the bathroom. Forearm cuff crutches prevent me from carrying much of anything—certainly not a cup of coffee or a plate of food—so my wife, Bel, waits on me, 24/7. She sets up stations of supplies in each of my locations. Ice water in oversized Stanley Cups, Ace bandages to wrap around the ice packs and provide compression, pillowcases to place between my skin and the ice. Protein bars and protein drinks, since I really don’t want to eat anything. Bel reminds me to eat, and sometimes to chew.

If this were a movie, we’d cue the montage right about here. Psychedelic swirls, camera slightly out of focus, The Doors Crystal Ship warbles over a blur of ice packs and water and food and drugs and our Oxy-ed out hero, precariously vertical, leaning on a crutch in a small, tiled room, aiming to not miss the toilet.

Fade out.

Fading up, we find our man ice-packed and in the early drug cycle (you learn to know where you’re at in the 4- to 6-hour narcotic schedule), watching TV on a couch, trying to find a position that minimizes the deep, dull leg pain.

I’ve told Bel I am fine, so she should go out for a nice, long walk in the mountains with our dog. It’s Sunday, take a drive. Grateful for the break—neither of us is having any fun with this—she heads up the hill, out of the heat of the Salt Lake Valley, to accompany Mabel on a dirt road along a stretch of backcountry called Mormon Flats.

I’m not feeling great, but overall, everything seems to be going fine. My biggest complaint is that I can’t find any sports worth watching on television. I’m half watching World Jai-Alai League on Fubo, wondering if they ever hit each other with those long, curved scoops they hold in their hands, and how much it would hurt to be hit by one of the throws (which the announcers claim can travel at up to 150 mph!) when everything changes.

Suddenly, I’m freezing cold, with intense, electric pain coursing from my leg. Curling into a fetal position, I’m grinding my teeth, wondering how my forehead could be pouring sweat while my body shivers uncontrollably. Then my teeth start clacking. What the hell? I didn’t even move, and suddenly the couch has become an electric chair.

I grab my phone, and a pitiful voice that must be mine begs Siri to call Bel.

Mercifully, she’s in a place with a signal and picks up right away.

Something’s wrong, I say. Can you come home?

They said the block would wear off, she says, as she wipes my forehead with a towel and covers me with blankets. It strikes me that the terms used in the medical profession tend toward understatement, well-intentioned obfuscation. Wear off, sounds decidedly gradual, does it not? As in, the shiny wax from the car wash will slowly wear off, losing its sheen over days and weeks.

This was about as gradual as being t-boned by a Tacoma.

We put in a call to Dr. Heiden and leave a message with his answering service. Twenty minutes later, much to our surprise, he calls back. Bel brings me the phone, and, still shivering, I pull it under the covers to tell him what’s happening.

He listens to my drama and in a very calm voice, says, That’s about right. Happened to me too. It was really hard. It’s the block coming out.

He asks how long it’s been going on, and when I tell him a couple of hours, he says it shouldn’t last too much longer.

You’ll be fine, you just have to gut it out.

I thank him and wish him a good Sunday, and then go back to shivering. But here’s the thing, I actually do feel better. So much of this, I will learn, is about understanding what’s going on. Which I often feel I don’t, and in this case, what you don’t know will hurt you. If happiness is a function of our expectations, so is suffering. If you expect and prepare for it properly, you may be able to endure pain and suffer less. But when you’re feeling intense pain and your brain is screaming, why does it hurt so much? I must’ve done something wrong, it doubles up on the pain.

Months later, one of my physical therapists will say, I feel like they kind of undersell how hard the recovery from this surgery is. You do know what they do during that surgery, right? I’m honest with her and tell her that I didn’t research it as completely as I might have because I didn’t want to chicken out.

I now know what they do during the surgery and completely understand why they might want to soft-pedal the hard facts and focus instead on the benefits.

Still, at the time, Dr. Heiden’s counsel does make it easier to endure the pain. If I were a millennial, I’d say that he’s acknowledged my pain, set clear boundaries, and given me space to suffer. Since I’m not of that happy talk generation, I’ll say that he put it to me straight, like a good hockey coach would.

I picture Moose Clark, my Pee Wee coach, a mountain of a man, leaning over me as a whimper on the bench of our outdoor rink in a pre-dawn, sub-zero hockey game.

Suck it up, Billy, you’ll get through it.

Moose was right, and so was Heiden.

A couple of hours later, the intense pain abated, but the shivering stuck around a bit longer. Despite Utah’s August heat (90 to 100), I spent the next three days wearing a heavy fleece cardigan. At least it had pockets.