I had a month or two of decent health accompanied by physical therapy. I had decided to follow up with treating a cranky knee that I had been dealing with for over 35 years. I had dislocated the knee back then and torn the cartilage. The treatment at the time was to remove all the cartilage and leave the patient walking bone on bone in the affected knee. The hip operation went well, so I called the same surgeon for an appointment to discuss options.
By the middle of January 2021 I was walking 1-1/2 miles per day, 5 days a week. We had scheduled the right knee replacement for 3/24/2021. In early March I started feeling really yucky. That’s a medical term that covers a lot of symptoms. I slept most of one day away and in the following days I experienced serious muscle pain in my shoulders, neck, arms, and hands with major pain and a burning sensation in my quads (front of thighs). While sitting normally in a chair, I could not lift my feet more than an inch or two off the floor. I had to stop walking outside as a result. During that period of about 2 weeks I felt more sick than I ever remembered. About the same time I had a meeting with a nutritionist. I had been striving to lose weight (having taken off about 85 pounds in the previous year) and she reviewed what I had been eating. She strongly recommended I add protein to 2 meals a day because I just wasn’t eating enough protein. Since adding protein is easy, I did and 2 days later the muscle pain diminished and then cleared. But I was dealing with more severe balance issues.
Months later the doctors still aren’t sure if this was Guillain-Barre syndrome triggered by the Covid virus or just a long term effect of Covid or the deficit of protein while I was walking so much more. I was advised I might be a Covid long hauler. And they didn’t know enough about Covid yet to be sure.
In mid March, prior to the knee surgery, my surgeon’s nurse practitioner called to say he realized I had a urinary tract infection in late December, but had not yet had a test to make sure it was finally clear. He requested a test and I had it done the same day. Yep. Still had the UTI (or had a new one?). My doctor prescribed another week of antibiotics and two days later followed up with an order for a second week of the same antibiotic. My doctor consulted with the surgeon and they decided the knee operation would have to be delayed until I was free of the UTI.
The next post will deal with the knee replacement.
Aggressive Retirement 