#$@&%*! Ms. Watkins battles through another torturous physical therapy session after her summer knee replacement surgery.

As a surgical nurse, I knew what to expect when I got my knee replaced this summer. The steps, the instruments, where the retractors would go. I knew the tourniquet psi and that I'd be prepped from here to there. What I didn't know was what to expect in recovery. Truth is, I never thought much about what happened to my total knee patients in post-op and beyond. After I reported to the PACU nurse, I was focused on the next patient. Here are a few highlights of my ongoing recovery that took me by surprise.

• I knew that total joints didn't get catheters anymore, but it hadn't occurred to me that I'd have to use a bedpan in PACU. There's no dry or dignified way of doing that, and now it has to be done. All those years of being proud to be able to work an 8-hour shift without a pee break, right down the proverbial toilet.
• A few years ago, I couldn't even get out of bed for 24 hours after abdominal surgery. What made my handlers think I could hoist myself up onto a walker to stand, much less walk, on my bionic knee just a few hours after surgery?
• Pain. OMG. I asked a few people I worked with about what to expect. "Your pain will be surgical pain," they said, not the bone-on-bone grinding I'd long suffered. And anesthesia would administer a "magic cocktail" for days of post-op relief. My cocktail must have been a Shirley Temple, because my knee wasted no time before screaming about the foreign object that had taken up residence and the oversized paper cut burning over top of it. At one point, my pain score on a scale of 1 to 10 was 15.

• Physical therapy, thy name is torture. It'll hurt, they said, but it'll end up being your best friend. Make that "frenemy." Five exercises, twice a day? I was exhausted just from the walk down the hall to the torture chamber.
• All these years of putting tourniquets on my patients, I had no idea that it would hurt in those areas after surgery, even if it's only on for an hour.
• Taking a shower was interesting. Modesty went out the window, especially since my mother and daughter were helping to keep me upright. The whole production seemed strangely off-balance: They were fully clothed and getting soaked, while I was the only naked person in the room.

I'll be back
More than 2 months after surgery, I'm still always tired. It's PT 3 days a week, and I'm progressing. Not fast enough, in my opinion, but improving. The need for pain meds has dwindled down to almost nothing, unless I'm joining in the fun and games of PT. As soon as I master an exercise there, they increase the reps or the time, or put me on a harder machine. I'm using a cane now, which disgusts my ego. At least when I was on a walker, I didn't care what my hair looked like, whether I had makeup on or if I was wearing sweats 3 sizes too big for me. I'm saying I'll be back in the OR in 3 months, but seeing as how surgical nursing means the ability to work without limitations, my surgeon says 4 to 5 months might be a more realistic goal. Those surgeons, they always have to be right, don't they? OSM