“Grammy” Back to Babysitting Now that Knee Pain is Gone
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Eileen will never forget the morning she stopped by her daughter’s house, and heard her 2-year-old granddaughter crying upstairs in her crib. She zipped up the stairs to tend to her and was rewarded with Anna’s engaging smile for “grammy.” It was all that much sweeter because Eileen couldn’t have zipped up those stairs a few months earlier. Eileen, 68, had such pain in her right knee that the things she loved most, including babysitting for her grandchildren, going to the theater and dinner with friends, and even walks in the park had become impossible. |
She woke at night to take painkillers, avoided stairs, stopped going to the gym, and had a difficult time caring for her husband, Art, who 20 years ago suffered from a stroke. She even started using a cane.
“The pain was constant and severe every moment,” said Eileen, mother of four and grandmother of 12. “I didn’t want to move because I knew it would be painful. I didn’t want to get down on the floor to help put on my husband’s shoe because I knew I’d have to get back up again. The pain just never left me.”
Quite active when she was younger, Eileen played field hockey and basketball, and recalls her knee popping out of place several times when she was in high school. She’d had surgery on her right knee when she was in her early 30s to clean up loose tissue that was causing knee pain. The cartilage in her joints began wearing away – a disease known as osteoarthritis – and last year, she underwent hip replacement.
Once Eileen recovered from the hip replacement surgery, she began noticing how much her knee hurt. She had knee injections and her doctor drained it of accumulated fluid several times a month. Finally, her doctor told her it was time to have knee replacement.
An orthopaedic surgeon replaced Eileen’s right knee with the Zimmer® Gender Solutions™ Knee, the first and only knee shaped to optimally fit a woman’s anatomy, and the only implant offering these features:
- Thinner profile in the front
- More natural movement when bending and walking
- Contoured shape to more closely match the narrower anatomy of a woman’s knee.
“I thought it was a great idea,” said Eileen. “Now this friend of mine, she wants one too. She’s in a lot of pain.”
Eileen was thrilled with how fast she recovered from the knee replacement. “It was just amazing,” said Eileen. “It moves naturally and feels absolutely fine.”
Since having knee replacement with the Zimmer Gender Solutions Knee, Eileen has renewed her theater tickets, enjoys babysitting her grandkids, and doesn’t mind going up the stairs to her office to check her email. She’s looking forward to getting back to exercising and is planning a trip to Europe with her friends.
“I went to the pharmacy a few weeks ago, and the woman who works there said how happy she was to see me smiling. “You are so different, you don’t have your cane,” she said, and I said, “You’re right!” “I’d forgotten about my cane. It was blessed relief,” said Eileen.
Eileen advises other women who suffer with knee pain not to wait so long to have knee replacement surgery. “This knee gave me pain-free living and flexibility and movement and all of those things that people are waiting for and not getting,” said Eileen. “I’d tell other to go ahead and do it and get their life going again, because that’s what it’s done for me. It has given me a life.”
For Eileen, the simplest joys are the greatest.
“Before, I couldn’t go to my grandchildren’s games, I couldn’t walk across the fields and now I can,” said Eileen. “Playing outside, using their chalk on the driveway, you want to be there. I delight in every moment I have with my grandchildren.”
