Nov 19: SEVENTEEN WEEKS: Final Strength Testing

Yesterday I did a solo ski tour at Vail Pass. Going up the Shrine Pass Road was fine. Coming down: the weakness was evident in my right leg. Hard to commitment to the braking effect of a turn on the well packed road on the right side, so I was sore at the end.

I wondered what the total cost of this surgery was. I called the insurance company. By far the largest item was the payment to the hospital of about $58000. The other large items were the surgeon’s fee of $6000 and the anesthesiology fee of $2900. I am not sure about the post-op PT cost. There were other small items. So a ballpark estimate is $68000. This seems in line with what appears in the news as the cost of a total knee replacement.

Today was the last of my 38 visits to Howard Head Physical Therapy. Eric did some strength testing. The results:

Involved vs Uninvolved Leg:
Knee Extension: 91.2%
Knee Flexion: 75.5%
Hip ABD: 90.1%
Hip Extension: 99.9%
Hip ER Prone: 98.2%
Hip Flexion: 105.3% (!)

These are all quite good. I wonder if that 75% is because right leg flexion has worse than left for many years pre-op.

The hamstring-quad ratio was 50.5% in left leg and 41.9% in right. Eric thinks these should be closer to 70%.

I will likely do these again in January sometime, with a goal of getting the knee flexion to 90% and improving the hamstring:quad ratio.