"Ouch!" Oh my gosh I am really hurting! I mean I can't imagine why- they just filet'd me like a trout, took out my worthless knee joints and put in new ones, closed the wounds shut with over 50 staples I think they got from Home Depot.

"Pain meds please!" This will be my battle-cry for the next week. They told us in the mandatory knee replacement surgery prep class to stay ahead of the pain because we need to be able to do Physical therapy and start to get moving. As a matter of fact- they got me up and standing on the second day post-surgery, and later that day I walked to the door of my room and back.

"OWWWWWWWW! that hurts!" My mind was starting to second guess my decision to replace both knees at the same time. I look down again at my staples and they look gnarly. I mean that in the cool way.

I did get to eat today though- Jello, oatmeal, juice ... oh yeah and ice chips of course - good old ice chips.

They tell me the physical therapist has been in a couple of times today, but I was sleeping. Not really looking forward to PT. Can't I just sleep for a while?

There's a knock on my door...guess who? It's the physical therapist and she brought in a contraption called a CPM (continuous passive motion) machine. It's kind of like a medieval torture device, but with soft fuzzy lambskin covers. You strap your leg into it and it starts bending your leg back and forth. You can set the range of motion to your current flexiblity and increase it slowly over days or weeks. I actually enjoyed using it -  In fact I would all asleep in it because it loosened me up and made me feel a little better. The goal was 6 hours a day. Honestly I probably used it 3-4 hours per day

 Stay tuned for the next episode of Pat's Amazing Jour-Knee "Get up and walk. Are you crazy?"