…we drove up to Salmon Creek Hospital in Vancouver at dark-thirty for my second knee surgery. This is crossing the Columbia River at 5:00 a.m. I was amazed at how much traffic there was at this early hour.

The hallways to the desk were pretty empty.

My bed and lovely garments awaited me. Fashionista for sure!

The whiteboard with all pertinent info on it. I was pretty nervous by this time. This is in the pre-op room.

This helped to cheer me up.

My surgery lasted a couple of hours; this time I had to have a general instead of a spinal anesthetic. I’ll take the spinal any day. Waking up from a general takes so much longer! They brought me my first meal, and I felt like AFK was right there in the room with me, cheering me on because she loves cows so much.

The view out my window. I was only in the hospital overnight.

My orthopedic PT nurse showed me what my new knee looked like. Wowzie to da max. It really is pretty amazing.

Nolemana drove us back across the Columbia River about 2:00 p.m. the next day. That’s PDX in the background.

As soon as I got settled into bed, my two feline nurses came up on the bed to comfort me. Nolemana started calling Kalakoa “Nurse Kitty”, and the name has stuck with him. He has trouble pronouncing Hawaiian names when they’re long. My leg is in the CPM machine. Noelani, the gray kitty, was also attentive.

So how am I doing a year later? Great! Patrick, my physical therapist, really helped me to recover; he’s awesome! I’m able to walk places I could never have walked to before. Last September I walked all over the Clackamas County Fairgrounds for Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival , which I hadn’t been able to do the year before. And I did it two days in a row, too! I’m at the gym five days a week, continuing to build up strength in both knees (my right one had a partial replacement last January).  My knees get achy sometimes, but I’m never in what I’d call pain. I walk to places and don’t have to use a cane or anything.

I’m glad I had it done. It was a very difficult surgery and recovery because my surgeon, Dr. Borus, also had to straighten my crooked leg, which used to have quite an angle to it. See what I mean? Before x-ray on the left.

Yeah, recovery, PT, and exercises could be ‘way hard…but I’m glad I had it done. It really did change my life.