Category: Goolsbee News

One Week Post-Op.

Running the ice&compression machine on the knee. My walker in the background.

One week on. As I have said before very slow, but steady and perceptible progress. I’ve taken two showers. Been down and up the stairs a few times. I’m off the Oxycodone for a full 24 hours now (may get a refill however should I need it again in the future.) Opiates and I have never had a good relationship. I have a fairly strong histamine reaction to them, making me itchy and irritable. I have only ever had them for dental work and usually stopped them after a day or two. Not really possible in this scenario because this pain is a whole different level. When you think about it, someone split my joint down the middle, pried apart everything, then sawed off the bottom of my femur, the top of my tibia & fibia, drilled some holes in the remaining bone, fitted some metal into the holes, and in the process removed most of my connective tissue that actually makes knees work. So, yeah. It HURTS.

Dr. Goolsbee bought me some Benadryl to tone down the histamine reaction and I honestly welcomed the relief that the pain medication delivered. Without it I would not been able to sleep, nor get out of the chair and move around, which is essential for recovery. I transitioned off of Oxy and onto Tramadol, which is adequate, but lacks the full “sweet relief” feeling of the Oxy. I can see why people get addicted, but honestly without the “sawzall my bones” pain chasing me I don’t need the buzz.

I can move around the house using the walker. I’m not ready for a cane or crutches yet. So I’m slow and sort of useless. I can’t carry things or do any tasks while standing that require any movement beyond hands.

The ice machine is a godsend, as it carries me through from med dose to med dose in relative comfort. It is absolutely required after any of my journeys on the stairs, as I’m usually fairly tired and sore after those.

Update: 4.5 days post op.

I’m feeling some progress. Slow, but steady. VERY thankful for the months of work I put in getting my body ready for this. I hit the gym two to four times a week, focus on strength training and flexibility. The payoff has been making getting up and around easier. Getting up and down to/from seated is easy using one leg and one arm only (the other hand just serves for balance.) I’ve helped others in this situation and it is no fun to watch them struggle and pull on you. Linda is a lot smaller than I so I don’t want to put her in any danger.

Speaking of Linda, having a Doctor here taking care of me has been a blessing. She has kept me on the clock for meds and whatnot, a task my drug-addled post-op brain could never perform! Given her issues (eye surgeries, aneurism stent & coil, a broken foot, and hip replacement) and my care for her during those episodes she is doing great repaying that debt.

Not much to see (yet.)

The pain has been kept under control, except for this afternoon when I, feeling great and home alone, went two hours past my dosage time and suddenly felt awful. Totally my fault. Linda left with instructions to take X at Y:o’clock and I forgot.

Range of motion is coming back slowly. Still using a walker to get around, and probably will continue until my first post-op Dr. appointment next week.

I’m on a Facebook group for TKR support and I swear the folks are a bunch of whiners. Yeah, it hurts. Taking a robotic sawzall to your bones is never going to be pain free! Lots of people clearly didn’t know what they were getting into and have just assumed it would be easy. Suck it up buttercups!

I keep having super vivid dreams about doing things that I haven’t been able to, so really looking forward to getting into physical therapy soon.

Update on my Knee Replacement

Surgery was Friday morning. They couldn’t get the spinal block to work so fell back to general anesthesia. We were home by early afternoon, and the sole challenge was getting up the stairs to the main floor. I’ve been there ever since. Friday was good. I was doing laps around the kitchen, feeling okay. Slept in a recliner with my legs elevated and in an ice/compression sleeve. Saturday was a big step back. The anesthesia wore off and I experienced severe pain and discomfort. I was under instructions to get up and move around every hour. I mostly complied but it wasn’t fun. At. All. I probably slept half the day away in a haze of pain killers. Watched some playoff hockey.

Sunday was more of the same, except towards the end of the day I noted a slight improvement in pain, especially with some of the basic exercises (ankle flex especially). The compression stockings came off. By Sunday night, watching the St. Louis v Winnipeg playoff game finishing in double overtime, I was feeling pretty good. Mobility is still difficult but my pain levels are dropping noticeably.

I don’t like taking serious painkillers for two reasons: I get a serious histamine reaction (itchy all over) and I end up having extremely vivid dreams that sometimes startle me into moving in ways that are counterproductive to healing.

Now on day three and I have relocated to a different part of the upstairs for the day. Hopefully things will continue to progress positively.

Awaiting an upgrade…

My OEM right knee.

Way back in my twenties I did some damage to this part of me. Well, it wasn’t intentional, as I bent it in a direction it was never intended when two other grown men fell on top of me while we were playing a “beer league” hockey game on a Wednesday night in Seattle. I bounced up off the ice and continued to play, but the next time I went down on that knee to stop a puck I could barely get back up again. I was at the far end of the rink from the dressing rooms, but I just skated off, leaving the players shrugging and asking “WTF!?” at me as I left play. (Hockey is really dull to play without a goaltender!)

I peeled off my gear to find my right knee looking like a bruised grapefruit of unusual size. I had a few arthroscopic surgeries and a lot of rehabilitation and physical therapy over the next few years, but it has never been the same. My first doctor said that that I could continue playing hockey. A subsequent doctor told me “If you want to be able to walk when you’re an old man you should probably stop playing hockey.” That was five years after the initial injury. I quit playing, but continued being active in other ways, specifically officiating ice hockey for another decade, because I love the sport, and wanted to remain involved. Eventually I stopped working games as it kept me away from my kids too much.

I kept on skiing though. I adapted my skiing style to minimize risk to that knee. I still ski to this day, and beyond riding my bike (which I only do to keep in shape, such as it is, to continue skiing) it is my primary form of recreation and exercise.

Back in the 90s my Orthopedic surgeon suggested a total knee replacement, but stressed that the procedure was in a state of constant evolution and improvement, so probably best to just keep an eye on that progress and pick a time later in life when my original equipment is causing more problems and discomfort than a replacement surgery would. That time is now at hand. My right leg is noticeably shorter than my left, so I walk with a limp. I start each day feeling okay, but if I walk enough I end up swollen and in pain. I would like to be more active, but this knee holds me back. I often descend stairs backwards, because if I face downward while stepping down, my limited range of motion throws me off balance just as my left foot is about to touch the stair below. So carrying things down stairs is almost impossible. I have to sleep on the right side of any bed so I can hang my right heel off the edge, because I can’t straighten my right leg. If I don’t do this and I actually sleep with a straight right leg I will wake up in pain of having my bone-on-bone all night long.

Spot the difference!

I have been scheduled for this surgery a couple of times now, the first for the summer of 2020, (guess what stopped that one) and again in Colorado during our aborted relocation there. But now it is definitely happening this coming Friday.

The same surgeon that worked on Linda’s hip will be doing the surgery on my knee. I picked this date to coincide with the end of the ski season (and NHL Playoffs on the TV), but with enough recovery time for Nick & Izzy’s wedding in early July. I’ve been working out in a gym since September, with a lot of emphasis on my legs. I hope that my efforts will pay off with a swift recovery.

Dr. Goolsbee will be helping me through this recovery with her amazing patience and kindness. As soon as I am able I will update you all on progress, but I imagine my weekend and early next week will be spent in an opiate haze.

Wish me luck!

E24M Power Steering pump rebuild and reinstall.

Freshly rebuilt power steering pump.

When I drove this car home from its previous owner in Wisconsin I noted an odd, barely perceptible vibration when the steering wheel was anywhere right of TDC. It grew worse over the following year, to the point I stopped driving it. From the leaks I could tell that this pump was dying. Eventually all the fluid came out, even while parked.

I replaced the alternator soon after driving it home (its bushings had collapsed) so it’s not surprising that these thirty-plus year old seals had hardened to the point of uselessness. I also was a bit daunted by the pump’s location and what appears to be a complicated bracket setup. The alternator turned out to require removal of some radiator hoses, which didn’t happen this time, but it still wasn’t easy.

The PS pump has two hydraulic connections, and a multiple set of brackets on both front and back, along with a toothed adjustment bracket to set the belt tension.

It was tough to remove, mostly due to the difficulty in reaching the top hydraulic banjo bolt. Thankfully I had the car on the scissor lift and could find the sweet spot for reach while lying on a carpet remnant on the cold concrete of the shop floor. It took multiple attempts at multiple heights to get all seven or so regular bolts and the two banjo bolts undone. I then sent the pump off to a guy in California for the rebuilding.

A bit of hilarity ensued when he mixed up two pumps and sent each to the wrong clients. Thankfully he figured out quickly where each of them were and had us ship them to each other on his dime. I don’t mind some human error now and then, what matters is how it gets handled. Compared to our experiences with Dan Mooney of Classic Jaguar (which was a costly nightmare) this experience was smooth and I’m still a happy customer in the end. This car needs another pump rebuilt, and I’m very likely to send it to the same guy. He was fast, communicative, and swift to rectify his shipping error. The pump looks great (almost like new, only the “West Germany” label betrays its age!) and arrived pre-primed with fluid. So far I’m impressed.

Less impressive is my mechanical ineptitude as always. It required three attempts to get it back into the car properly. All due to me. 100%. On the second attempt I figured out that the hydraulics need to be attached FIRST since the hoses have to be “just so” in order to properly sink those banjo bolts into the right spots. Of course, they are not visible while you’re doing this and so you’re holding up the pump with one hand while reaching around to the top with the other to blindly turn a bolt, hose, and two washers (which always want to fall out and roll off to some dim, unlit corner of the shop!) into the right spot. After I figured that part out, I found that the adjuster bracket really needed to be installed on the bench prior to installation in the car:

Proper pre-installation of the adjustment bracket.

One more lap around the hydraulic hose install and then one fixed bracket bolt and THEN the adjustment bracket and finally all the other bolts and it is done.

I figure about the time I figure everything out, I’ll die.

But at least now I can get this car moving under its own power again, and off the lift so I can get back to swapping snow tires on and off cars. Winter has come!

Back in the car.
My chilly workshop.