Dave Y

Age at interview: 72

Brief Outline:

Dave had a partial replacement on his right knee in 2012. Since then, he has had lung cancer and a heart attack, and worried about the dangers of going under general anaesthetic for a joint replacement on his left knee. Dave went on to have a total replacement of his left knee, for which he had an epidural. Dave feels the outcome of this surgery has exceeded his expectations. 

Background:

Dave is married and has children and grandchildren. He is a retired Network Rail worker. His ethnicity is White British.

More about me...

Dave began having problems with his knees about 35 years ago. While on a camping trip with his son, he felt his right knee lock out. He saw a doctor at A&E and was told that a piece of cartilage had broken off, which was removed through keyhole surgery. Decades later, Dave began to have pain again in both of his knees and an x-ray showed he had osteoarthritis. At the time, Dave’s right knee was the most painful and he had a partial joint replacement in 2012. His recovery went well and he no longer experienced aches or pain in the right knee. More recently, though, Dave’s left knee started hurting and limiting his ability to walk. With his knee gradually getting worse, he requested a referral from the GP to see a specialist.

Dave has had some significant health problems, which he worried could make knee surgery riskier. Shortly after having his right knee replaced, Dave had a heart attack which required five stents be inserted. A delay in getting to the hospital caused some damage to his heart, which made Dave “wary” of going under anaesthetic in the future. He also had a stent and a balloon inserted into his left leg. Two years after his heart attack, Dave was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was initially told that he had 12-18 months left to live but fortunately the doctor’s “prognosis was a little bit adrift”. Dave went to see a different cancer specialist and had intensive rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. He is regularly monitored to make sure the cancer does not return.

Dave considered his left knee to be “the only thing” holding him back since his heart and lung problems were now well-controlled. He takes seven tablets for his heart, as well as turmeric for its anti-inflammatory properties. Dave managed his left knee pain using Voltarol gel, co-codamol, and paracetamol. He also found wearing certain types of trainers and using an elasticated bandage on his knee helpful. Dave had steroid injections for his knee before, but didn’t find these to be very effective.

Dave describes himself as having health anxiety, which started several years ago with his late wife’s breast cancer diagnosis. If the damage to his heart hadn’t occurred, Dave thinks he would have gone straight ahead with knee replacement surgery on his right side. Dave tries to be careful with looking online for health information as he considers himself a “bit of a hypochondriac”. To manage his health anxiety, he tries to remind and reassure himself that “I’m still here and there’s nothing wrong”.

Based on what he knew from his previous knee replacement surgery, Dave was mainly interested in asking the specialist about local anaesthetic and the risks from his heart and lungs. He was concerned about going under general anaesthetic and had been previously warned about this by a GP. However, after his knee pain worsened, Dave was willing to consider all of the treatment options available to him. After speaking with his doctors and friends about their experiences with local anaesthetic, Dave decided to have the procedure under an epidural, despite his worries about feeling claustrophobic and his anxiety being triggered with the smells of the operation. Dave felt well supported in his decision by his wife and his Macmillan nurse, and was confident in the expertise of his doctors.

Dave was initially offered a surgery date two months after his referral, but due to planned holidays did not have the surgery for another three months. During the surgery, Dave listened to a comedy programme through headphones. He found being awake during the operation “comforting that you’re going to come out of it”. Dave said he would “happily endorse epidural to anybody, providing you’ve got good listening through the headphones”. After his procedure, Dave spent four days in hospital recovering. He described the pain he initially felt as an “annoyance” but opted not to ask for morphine out of concern about becoming dependent on it. Dave had a visit from the physiotherapist during this time too.

When Dave returned home, he and his wife made some modifications to aid his recovery, like installing a frame around the toilet for support. However, Dave found some of these aids were unnecessary after a week or so and they were removed. Dave had home visits from a physiotherapist, who taught him exercises for his knee. Dave’s pain gradually improved and he was able to go without painkillers from one month after his surgery.

Dave is pleased with the outcome of his knee replacement: “it brought me back a load of life again”. He is now back to walking and going to the gym, where he uses the bike and treadmill. He has found that his pain is gone and he is very happy to once again be able to dance with his wife and play with his grandson. He says “it’s hard to put in words how I feel sometimes when I can just go for a walk around the shops”. Dave is looking forward to booking his summer holidays once he gets the final signoff from the surgeon. When asked if he has advice for other people considering knee surgery, he says “don’t be like me and leave it”. Dave also recommends that people do exercises before the surgery to build up muscle strength and to “keep the physio up”.

Dave Y stopped going to his GP about his knee after being told that he couldn’t have an operation because of his heart condition. When the pain worsened, he went back and asked to be referred.

No, my GP, when I mentioned it to him before, he said, “Well, you can’t have an operation because of your heart.”

Which sort of put me out a little bit and that’s why I stopped going to the doctor about my knee, but it was getting so painful after a while I thought ‘well, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and get a referral to the orthopaedic hospital’, which is where we are at now.

Dave Y’s friend suggested turmeric for its anti-inflammatory properties. He took it twice a day, along with his painkillers.

And I take turmeric twice a day.

Oh Okay. And do you find that makes a difference?

Oh, and I don’t know, but let’s put it this way: how I would have felt if I hadn’t taken it, I don’t know.

But I’m feeling okay.

Wife: And an anti-inflammatory.

Anti-infla- overall I’m feeling okay.

Where did you hear about turmeric as a sort of health supplement?

A friend of mine who owns a hotel near us- it must have been about two or three years ago, we just happened to see him in the, four or five years ago, in a local supermarket, we just happened to be talking away and he’s asked me how things are going, I just mentioned to him, he said “Why don’t you try turmeric?” He’s an Indian from [place] and of course there are- since I’ve found out, that’s in a lot of staple diets for-yeah, organic turmeric for Asian people.

Wife: And he took it.

So, I’ve been on it ever since.

Dave Y wanted surgery as soon as he knew he could have an epidural rather than a general anaesthetic to reduce the risks of surgery from his heart and lung conditions.

Yeah, and I’ve a Motability badge, you know, I’ve got a disabled badge, it’s not only because of my knee, and because of my other conditions, they’ve let me have a disabled badge and-, but it was no-, it was no-brainer when they said, “Yeah, you-, we can do it,” and, you know, epidural here I come, I didn’t even think about, ‘oh, shall I, or shall I not?’ No, I don’t-, I went for it; I just wanted it done.

During his operation, Dave Y listened to pre-recorded comedy programmes on his headphones.

Well, to begin with, well I suppose I did have an option, is to have it, or not have it, because of my age and because of-, [coughs] excuse me, previous medical problems I had, i.e., heart condition and two years after that, lung cancer, which everything is cleared up now, but I was a bit concerned about having it-, operation and a risk, all that, under the anaesthetic, so I just went for epidural.

Well, you’re awake for a start, you don’t feel a thing, you hear it, you hear what’s going on, and if you’re not squeamish you hear the drilling, you hear the banging—

Wife: You’ve got earphones...

I mean, you know, you hear the banging. I had earphones on and I was listening to a couple of comedy programmes that I had previous recorded for the actual operation, and I was listening to that and it was great.

Wife: You got peace of mind...

Yeah that’s right, I got peace of mind—

Wife: That you’re going to come out of it at the end.

That I was awake, and we’re going to come out it, and I wasn’t going to sort of have it on my mind as you-, as the anaesthetic is first working: ‘am I going to wake up?’

You know, that I knew that I was going to wake up because I was awake.

Dave Y was concerned about becoming dependant on morphine after his total knee replacement surgery. He tried to manage without it.

And after that, for about a day I’d say I couldn’t feel anything from my waist down, but I could move, but there’s no pain until the next day, or I think the pain started to come back during the night.

And it was my fault that I didn’t ask for any morphine, because I didn’t want to get hung on morphine, or I was a bit sort of wary about it, yes, about having too much morphine, so I thought, ‘oh well, I’ll try and go to sleep,’ but it wasn’t much pain, it was more of an annoyance pain, you know, where…

Wife: Well, you didn’t sound brilliant [chuckles].

Yeah. I mean I-, wife came to see us-, what it is, I think it was the afternoon,—

Wife: I saw you on the Saturday morning and afternoon.

—yeah, and she come to me in the afternoon, of the day, and then I said, “Oh, it’s great, you know, it was really great,” and—

Wife: The morphine talking.

—yeah, and course the next day, totally different, I was more or less-, not that I’m uncomfortable, my leg’s aching, and this is aching but the pain didn’t last long.

Dave Y is unable to completely straighten his knee after knee replacement surgery and it aches a bit.

The only problem that-, if you say it’s a problem, I don't know what you call the back of your knee, behind your knee, the fleshy part that aches a bit.

Wife: The ligament.

Well, the ligament I suppose, or the hamstrings, that aches a bit and I can’t completely straighten the knee up, it’s got a slight bend to it,—

Wife: You’ve got to work on it though.

-but the thing is, my legs are not bowed out anymore – they’re straight; whereas before, I mean I used to be able to walk and you could put a pig between my legs, but now it’s good, and I can walk good. Sometimes I get a bit of a pain when I’m going up the stairs, but I think that’s the pressure when you go up one step at a time, the pressure you put on the actual knee, but that’s slowly-, it’s slowly wearing off.

Wife: It’s still early days.

The outcome of Dave Y’s knee replacement had exceeded his expectation. Being unable to kneel is not a drawback for him as he could dance with his wife again.

I am because we go-, every so often we go to [company’s] Hotels at weekends, when there’s certain events going on, 60s, 70s, and what they call ‘festivals’, 80s, or what have you, and whereas before, my wife used to go up and have a bit of a dance, a bit of a boogie, I used to sit back and couldn’t do it, or might do if I had a few whiskeys, not knowing what I’m doing, and not feeling the pain, but now, I think last time we went, I got up and we had a bit of a bit of a dance and that and it was great, and like the old days.

So-, and the times when I go-, because I go and see my grandson up in [town], I take my walking stick and now he wants me to donate it to him now, [chuckles] “The stick, granddad.”

[chuckles]

Yeah, so I want-, you know, I went up to see him yesterday and I was running round after him, so you know, I’m even kicking a ball to him when he’s out in the garden.

And would you say that the outcome of the surgery has matched, or met, your expectations of what you’d hoped it would be like and the recovery from it—?

Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s-, I’d say it was more than, you know, expectations about it, you know. I mean it’s-, I can’t-, it’s hard to put in words how I feel sometimes when I can just go for a walk round the shops or go to walk round the-, what we call ‘the Green’ and that, you know.

I can’t kneel, [clears throat] excuse me, I can’t kneel, but mind you when I do kneel down, I can’t get up, so there’s no point in kneeling down anyway, you know, so, you know, but I suppose if you want to call that a drawback, that’s the only drawback, but it’s not a drawback to me.

As you say, it means so much to you though to be able to do things, have some independence, and get back to—

Oh, definitely, yeah. I think last Christmas was about the best Christmas we’ve had for ages in a respect of being able to go places, do things.

Wife: It’s quality of life, you know?

Yeah, yeah, you know?

Yeah, absolutely.

Being able to do the Hokey-Cokey New Year’s Eve and things like that, and it was great.

Wife: New Year’s Eve he was dancing-, and stood up dancing—

Yeah.

Wife: —most of the night.

That’s what the wife, New Year’s Eve I was dancing most of the night.