July, 2022

We started off July 1st in the hospital at 5:30am for Kenneth's knee replacement surgery. It took a couple of hours for the surgery and not long after that, they had him up walking the halls. When the surgeon went in, he shaved off some of the bone to make his leg straighter as both legs have become bowed from the bad knees. After an overnight stay in the hospital, he was back at home where the real work began! I'm so proud of the way he tackled his physical therapy and the hard work he put in to ensure that this works! Five times a day on his PT bicycle, walking the hall at the house and stretching the knee all helped keep it from freezing up or developing scar tissue and now his knee is doing great. It's the right knee now that is holding him back, but on December 9th he'll have that one done and hopefully he'll be up and running soon after. We didn't do much this month except recover and stay in the air conditioning!

His nurse loved him!! They had a lot of fun kidding around with each other.

Finally got him into his room after the surgery and he's sleeping off the anesthesia. He was so sound asleep that his oxygen would drop below 80% causing the monitor to go off. The first time it happened, I didn't know what it was and the nurse came running. Once she explained what it was, I had to keep nudging him awake to take a couple of deep breaths to get his level back up. Was really happy when the anesthesia finally wore off enough that it quit happening! 

Right after surgery. Everything holding this together dissolved so nothing had to be removed.

Clearing those lungs up after all that anesthesia. He continued this at home for a couple of days, too. For never having been in the hospital before, he was a very good patient!

First round of PT. This was only about 2 hours after he got to the room after surgery. He was still pretty groggy and I was surprised they got him up so soon, but off they went down the hall!

Down the hall, out the doors and back in the doors on the other side of the unit. Pretty good walk to test out that new hardware!

The next morning, they had him up walking again. Look how straight his left leg is now!!

Feeling good and waiting to be discharged.

Stretching that leg and working that knee

Up and down the hallway at the house...he made this trip many times!!

Had him a pretty nice PT setup at the house!

Six days after surgery, he was getting around great and cooked us some dinner.

Had some fresh garden produce to go with our grilled meats

Temps on July 9th...108.6 and the heat index was over 120 because that's as high as our thermometer reads and when it goes over that, it just reads "HI"!!

Two week checkup was great! Doc says it's healing nicely and his range is way better than expected. I know that's because he's been doing such a good job with his PT.

Love the pics Grady posts of our great niece and nephew...they remind me so much of Daniel and Katie! Henry and Audrey are 2 years, 9 months apart in age just like mine and their coloring is the same, too.

We didn't do much this month, but Katie is always doing something fun!!