I'm going to have a TKR on my knee on June 16th. I have Kaiser, and they
have an entire system of preparation for this adventure; once you are
plugged into it, you are pretty much just along for the ride.

But sometimes the ride can have some lighter moments;

I had my mandatory TKR class this morning. The first thing I noticed among
all of us was that almost every single one of us was from my area...and the
CLASS was being held in a facility 75 miles away from where we lived, even
though there is a facility and classrooms in the town where we all live.
(sigh) Long drive, during rush hour traffic in LOS ANGELES...and longer day.

So by the time we got there and met each other, we weren't in much of a mood
to be entertained. VERY tough room, in other words.;-)

The nurse began the lecture by talking to us as if we were about three years
old and beginning pre-school. Either that, or else she figured we were all
senile; whatever her opinion, she was evidently mistaken. I can't speak for
MY level of understanding (I'm only an undergraduate..) but among the 12 TKR
patients there, not one was over sixty five, and I wasn't the youngest. I
think we confused her a little bit. She DID start treating us like adults
though, and that's all that saved her from getting beat up with our canes...

She handed out incentive spirometers for us to practice on, showed us how to
give ourselves shots with the blood thinner we are all going to have to
inject after we leave the hospital, and informed us that she had good news
and bad news; the bad news was that we had to give up, forever, all thought
of ever bunji jumping, parachuting or down hill racing...and she expected a
laugh. (grin)

What she GOT was questions about when one guy could fly again, another could
get back into the Nascar pit crew, and how soon a third, a woman, could get
back into her film career as a porn star. ;-)

She did tell us that we could probably drive within six weeks and we could
have sex immediately in any position. At this last bit of information I felt
a little like the old joke, "Dr., will I be able to play the violin?"
"Certainly" "Good, because I could never play it before this.."..

We shared some information about why we were all doing this...and my
favorite was from the guy who asked about his pilots' license; he said that
he'd had his left knee done last year, and the doctor had done such a good
job on it that he needed the other one done to match; seems that he is
bowlegged, and since the Doc straightened the bad one, he now has one leg
longer than the other. He's here to fix that. He figures he's going to grow
about an inch...(Grin)

Well...the whole thing amused my parents no end.