2/5/09 - Final Trip to Dr before Surgery

The week started out rough, but got gradually better as Dr. Gold worked miracles on my aching lower back. I will never hesitate to go to a Chiropractor again for sudden piercing pain in my back.

I met for the final time before surgery with Dr Casscells and was able to go thru my list of questions, and get answers to all of them. Now I know why I had to wait for almost 90 minutes before he saw me. If he spends as much time with each patient as he did me, he must always be running behind. I was prepared though, since I waited quite a while the last time, and brought both my knitting (I'm working on a pair of socks for myself - Rose, Purple, Teal - What else?) and my ipod with my current book.

Some of the questions and their answers - since some of you (my readers) provided me with the impetus to ask these.....

Q1. Why general anesthesia rather than a spinal (like all of the other Doctors)?
A1: Spinal causes the patient to be bed ridden for up to 8 hours after surgery, and must have a catheter (since they can't use bathroom). He wants his patients up and using the bathroom the same day as surgery.

Q2: Why not the OtisMed or Zimmer (female) Knee? What do you use and why?
A2: Dr Casscells has been doing TKRs for over 20 years, and has always used the Biomet (it's gone by different names over the years - but this is the current company). Here is a link to their website: http://www.biomet.com/patients/vanguard_complete.cfm. There are multiple other pages out there, feel free to puruse.... Anyway, What Dr. C told me is that while these other companies market primarily to the patient, BioMet is for Surgeons, and has 9 different sizes of knees (rather than 3 or 4) - and the top (that goes over the femur) and the bottom (that goes over the tibia) are interchangable - so if your top is bigger than your bottom.....All women will understand this! Also, this company uses a Vitamin E embedded cushion between the two bones for people my age (young)!

Q3: What else do you do differently?
A3: Rather than use staples to close the incision, Dr. C brings in a plastic surgeon who stitches the inner layers, and then uses steri-strips to close the incision. This ensures that the scar is less noticable, and heals much faster. Also much less chance of infection. - which I've learned is the biggest risk.