Replacement Knee

No, not for me. My knees are actually functioning!

Gramps (for whom I am a namesake) had his knee replace on the 14th. He is the strongest person I have ever seen. When he hip replacement surgery several years ago he was up and walking within 48 hours or so. He was very upset with how long the hospital insisted that he stay and do "silly occupational therapy, I only had a hip done, I still know how to think" is something we heard often. What I'm saying is that even though he had a new hip, he never hurt.

I have seen this man take a tree, literally, to the forehead. We were in the backyard of a neighbors house to take down a tree for them. It fell wrong and bounced off of the fence. Gramps was standing too close, and it hit him hard. It was just a little scratch, so he asked me for a hat to keep the injury hidden from my aunt as she walked by, and we moved on. Insane.

It is very very weird for me to see him when he is in pain. This knee thing is really bothering him. He leg is swollen. It's work for him to get to the toilet. We had to use a wheelchair to get him to the car yesterday.

Progress
Yesterday was my cousins 18th birthday. (I will definately be blogging about him in the near future, he is moving into my basement next month!) Somehow my very convincing grandfather talked his nurses into releasing him for just the afternoon. We picked him up around 2:00 and brought him back around 8:30, with a family and friends filled house of 15 people. He did really well with the car and the steps, but his leg is still ugly and swollen. I could tell that he is hurting, and it sucks that there's nothing that I can do about it.

Today he came home officially. He's staying with my aunts and has in-home PT scheduled. Next weekend he gets to take a trip "home" to the beach. He and his mom have breakfast on Thursdays with a group of other "locals" each week. They have managed to schedule the Thursday Group to get together on Saturday. He will make progress every day.

Or that's what I keep telling myself, because he's the man of steel that I've known all of my life.