It's been three months since Barbara Ciara's double knee replacement surgery and for the first time she's seeing how it all happened.
"Ohhhh!!!" - Barbara's reaction to seeing video of her graphic surgery, "He's sawing my bone!" And it wasn't just a saw being used. There were more tools, including a drill. Barbara's reaction to seeing it being used on her knees? "Oh my God!"
The man doing the hammering and sawing was orthopedic surgeon Dr. Louis Jordan from the Jordan-Young Institute.
"I tell patients it's like glorified carpentry," Dr. Jordan said.
He knows what he's talking about - Dr. Jordan does about 700 knee and hip replacements a year.
Dr. Jordan explained, "We don't take out your knee and throw it away... we sort of shave the periphery of the bone and whatever we take off, we replace with the implant. So you're kind of resurfacing the two bones and then in between those two, is a plastic piece which kind of serves as the new cartilage."
It's like putting together a puzzle using big tools.
While that sounds very complicated, Dr. Jordan says that's not the most challenging part about this procedure. "The most challenging part really is not the bony work we do but there's a lot of tissue work," he said.
That tedious work, making sure ligaments, muscles and tendons around the knee will function properly is very tricky. With that said, Dr. Jordan stresses what is truly critical. "I can do the best job in the world and if you don't do your therapy, the knee is going to get stiff and it's not going to work. Once I've done with the surgery, the result from there on out, is really up to the patient doing their therapy."
Well, without a doubt, Barbara is doing her part.
