23. Time For My Right Knee To Join In

Now a new joint has joined the knackered joint gang, my right knee, and when I say joined it’s decided to go right to the top of the pain chart. By that I mean it is on a par with my left hip as far as pain goes.

My right knee wakes me up at night, sometimes more than once a night. I know I’m going to have to start it on the orthopaedic merry-go-round but I’m hesitating as I’d rather get my arm and left hip out of the way first.

Today (Saturday 16/07/22), my left wrist has decided to have a flair-up which is not very nice. On Monday I’ve got to go to Crowborough for my follow-up appointment with the Pain Management Team. I shall have to tell them that I have plenty of pain but little or no management.

As expected, the visit to Crowborough was a hot, sweaty waste of time. She asked whether I got anything from the Pain Course to which I answered, honestly, No. The up-shot of the appointment was that I would have one more appointment to review medication and then they would probably sign me off. Another department realises that I’m a lost cause.

Since then, I’ve received a letter saying that I’ve been discharged as there is nothing more they can do for me. So, another department has thrown me away.

Today (26/07/22) I’m starting my sore right knee on the arthritis merry-go-round as I’m going for my first appointment with someone at the health centre who will probably send me for x-rays to see why my knee is so painful.

I have this vision that as my joints fail my operations form a queue a bit like a ‘taxi rank’ and as each op. is dealt with the rest move up a space.

As expected, my knee is now on the merry-go-round waiting for an appointment for x-rays but he said he would sign me up for some pain killers, Naproxen, and he would also refer me to the practice physio-terrorist who rang me the following day. She said she will see me when the x-rays are back but, in the meantime, she will send me some exercises to do which might help.

Later that day I received an e-mail with a link to a site which supposedly had the exercises for me do. I had to log into it using a code, that was entered automatically, and then it asked me to enter my year of birth, which I did and it replied that it didn’t know me so wouldn’t let me in. It advised me to contact the support people, which I did. When the support people replied they told me that I should put in a different year of birth to my real one until they can sort it out. I know I’m getting on but I’ve never been a woman who lies about her age and I don’t intend to start now.

A few days later the dispensary sent me a message that my medication was ready but when it was collected, I discovered it wasn’t Naproxen pills but a tube of Ibuprofen gel instead and unless I’m supposed to spread that all over it’s not much use to me. So, I rang the dispensary and told then what the problem was and she said she’d find out what was going on. When she called me back she said the doc said that Naproxen may adversely react with my other pills so I would need to arrange for a phone appointment so I could discuss medication with a doctor, which I did and that’s in a couple of weeks so I’ll have to manage without prescribed pain killers for a couple of weeks.

A letter came today with NHS on it but I made sure I didn’t get excited as I knew it would just be the appointment for my x-rays, on my knee, which is in a week’s time on a Saturday, so I’ve got to 2nd base.

Well, I’ve had the x-rays now so now I’ve got to wait for the results so it can be confirmed that another joint has joined the arthritis gang.

It’s now September and the results of my x-rays have arrived and as expected they showed that it’s osteo-arthritis. So, I’m going to be sent for some physio. Oh Joy!

I was meant to start physio on September 27th but I had to cancel that because of my op. on the day before, as I said I didn’t think I’d be feeling up to Physio and she agreed.