TBBR's Client Has Double Knee Replacement & Makes Remarkable Recovery!

I'm so proud of my client Catherine Stone. She had double knee replacement in February and has made a remarkable recovery! Read her story below....

"I am a 68 year old retired teacher. I have always been healthy and other than high blood pressure medicine that I have been taking less than a year, I am on no prescribed medicines. However, over the years, I had become less physically active and the excess weight started creeping up on me. As a result, my knees took a pounding. They began to swell and hurt. I had great difficulty going up and down steps and my only speed was slow.

About a year ago, Jamelia, one of my good friends and my inspiration, had double knee replacement surgery. She advised me to go to her doctor: Dr. Waldrop of the Hughston Clinic. I followed her advice and saw Dr. Waldrop last July, 2014. After doing x-rays, Dr. Waldrop told me that both of my knees were in bad shape. I had no cartilage on the inside and very little on the outside. He said that not only would I continue to hurt, but over time I would become bow legged. We decided that I would have the surgery early in 2015. He said that would give us enough time to jump through all the hoops that insurance requires.

Dr. Waldrop wanted me to do 6 weeks of physical therapy immediately. I questioned this, as to how doing therapy in July 2014 would help me with surgery in February 2015. He told me that the therapists were going to show me what to do and I would continue the exercises until I had my surgery. I had my doubts that I would follow through with everything at home.

Toward the end of my therapy, I started riding the stationary bicycle over on the gym side. I made several observations while sitting on that bicycle. I watched all the people working out and began to notice that some people had personal trainers, one being Ronstance. She was working with a middle aged man who talked with me on several occasions. He told me how much Ronstance had helped him, that he had been able to come off most of his medicine and had lost about 50 pounds. He said she was very good at what she does.

Finally, I talked to Roni, explaining my situation and asking her if she thought she could help me. She was very confident that she could. Mainly, I wanted her to teach me how to use the machines in the gym. But, I found out quickly that Roni is not a machine kind of gal. She does use the machines, but does more of the free-style kind of things.

So, to make a long story short, Roni has been working with me since late August. I lost about 10 pounds (exercise alone, no dieting) and found muscles that I haven’t seen in years. My knees actually stopped hurting all the time and I thought about not having the surgery. However, I kept going back to what Dr. Waldrop told me: that I would gradually become bow-legged if I didn’t get them fixed.

On Monday, Feb. 2, 2015, I underwent double knee replacement at the Hughstone Hospital in Phenix City, Al. I don’t remember much about the night after the surgery, but started getting more to myself the next day. Tuesday afternoon the physical therapists came in to get me up. With the use of a walker, I was able to walk across my hospital room. Tuesday night they came back and we actually walked out into the hall. They were amazed that I was able to do that. I had almost no pain while walking, the only pain was getting on and off the bed. I could not lift my legs up, but by the time I was discharged on Thursday, I was walking the entire hallway with the therapist and getting off the bed by myself.

From the beginning, I had planned to spend the two weeks after surgery in a re-hab facility. I chose Health South in Dothan because I had heard such good things about their work. At Health South, you spend a minimum of 3 hours per day in therapy, but while I was there, I always got about 4 hours. I got there on Thursday afternoon and had my first therapy session Friday morning. During the first session, my flexibility (degree of knee bend) was measured. The therapists couldn’t believe how far along I was. They said I must have been in really good shape before the surgery. Wednesday afternoon, the case worker came by and told me that “the committee” had met and that I would be discharged on Saturday. He said that I had already met all the insurance goals for knee surgery patients and I would be discharged to out-patient therapy.

My range of knee bend was 90 degrees less than a week after the surgery. I was able to go up and down stairs and even could ride a stationary bike. My therapist said she had never had a client, even one with only one knee replacement, ride the bike a week after surgery. I was able to get myself on and off the bed and could even put myself on the CPM machine (a device that bends the knee to a set degree for an hour at a time). All of them attribute my amazing recovery to the fact that I had worked so hard to improve my fitness level and, thanks to Roni, had my upper body and leg muscles so strong.

If you are considering joint replacement, I would highly recommend that you join the gym and get your body prepared. That was the second best decision I made prior to my surgery. The best decision I made was hiring Roni as my Personal Trainer. She knows what she is doing. Thanks, Roni and thanks to my friend, Jamelia, for pointing me in the right direction."

Catherine Stone