Teresa White
Total Knee Replacement Patient
Total Knee Replacement Patient: After having a total knee replacement performed by another orthopaedic surgeon, I was not recovering at all. In fact, I was getting worse and worse by the month. Any concerns were met with indifference.
I attended several appointments with my husband, to visit Dr. Foad for knee pain he was having. Our GP asked my husband to please see him, as he was more interested in his patients than the money that extra surgeries might bring into his business. Although I was a “bystander” at my husband’s appointments, Dr. Foad and I discussed my growing dilemma of my extremely swollen, painful, and non-functioning total knee replacement. He has so much compassion for his patients and their families that he felt he couldn’t sit by and watch me struggle, as I had done everything to give my original surgeon a chance to rectify the situation, with no results. After referring me to a very competent orthopedic surgeon in Iowa City, with no satisfactory answer to the problem, Dr. Foad sent me to another colleague to confirm his suspicions that I was in need of a revision. He “knew” that was the solution, but would not act on it until he had another trusted opinion. After one and a half years of walking with a cane from the original total knee surgery, buying bigger pants to accommodate my ever growing knee and “one-stepping” stairs (as my quadriceps muscle in that leg hadn’t performed since the knee replacement), Dr. Foad had enough compassion for me to do something that he’d not done before, and stated that he never would, and he performed a revision on my total knee. He explained thoroughly what this would entail, and what steps to recovery would follow.
The morning following his revision of my total knee, I flexed my foot, and used my quad muscles to raise my leg off of the bed, per physical therapy instructions. I cried. I hadn’t done this in over one and a half years. My life was changed dramatically. Dr. Foad sent physical therapists to my home for my convenience. He checked on my recovery quite often and stayed very involved. Within weeks, I was walking without my cane, climbing stairs normally, and living life the way it should have been so much earlier. Dr. Foad is the only orthopaedic surgeon that I would ever consider to treat me. In fact, he’s performed two carpal tunnel wrist releases on me since, and scopes on family members. He not only stays informed on the newest techniques, but also goes beyond.
I’m so proud to call Dr. Foad my surgeon and friend. I want to write an essay about all that he’s done for me and my family, but I will just have to say that he is the first surgeon that I’ve ever known to give of his time, so willingly, to make sure that you, as well as he, are comfortable with the options that have been chosen. If you are searching for an orthopaedic surgeon, there is no doubt, and no alternative, in my mind.