The Shiny New Knee...

Most people don't know that Shane has had chronic knee pain for the last 17 years of his life.

Chronic, constant, unrelenting knee pain.

He tore his ACL at age 21 and didn't get surgery for a year.  And when he did get the surgery it went bad…very very bad.  It caused massive arthritis and bone spurs so severe that just walking was  painful.  Heck, just sitting was painful!

He rubs my back, I rub his knee.

He has done all he can to work through it and live as normal of a life as he can.  He's run and biked and played basketball and volleyball and everything else, always paying for it in a major way the next day/week.

He worked diligently to try to keep it strong but it just kept getting worse and worse, the pain more and more severe until he finally made the decision…"I've got to get the surgery now."

Most doctors don't like to do total knee replacements on people under 40 years old because they only last a certain amount of time, but Shane's knee is so bad that the doctor agreed it would be good to do now.

Unfortunately when you decide you want the surgery "now" you have to figure out a time in your life that you can have a month or more to recover and you have to get on the doctor's schedule and "now" for us meant about 6 or 7 months after the decision was made.

It felt like it was never really going to happen, but wouldn't you know it, it actually did come.  It came on Monday, July 16th at 8 am.

Shane got himself a new knee.

The recovery has been rough, though not many people outside our home would know it.  He has shown up to the kids' 4 hour long swim meet (2 days after getting home from the hospital), to the Pioneer Day celebration at the ward, and to Sacrament meeting today.  At each event he put on a smile and talked to everyone who had questions but I could tell he was putting on a good show.  He was kind and good natured through it all.  Nevertheless, the minute we walked through the door he collapsed, so exhausted and in so much pain he could barely move.

I told him today that perhaps he shouldn't do so much and I think he now agrees.

There is a long road of recovery still ahead, but the promise of being able to use his knee, not only to do things he hasn't been able to do in years, but to live without chronic pain, is something that makes him so excited he can hardly stand it.

It makes me pretty excited too.

I'll make sure to post a picture of us playing tennis, snowboarding, and hiking Kilimanjaro some day.

At least now it's a possibility. :)