[NFBF-L] Diabetes? Artificial Intelligence, Knee Replacement Surgery

[pmdonahue2 at gmail.com]

Hello Mark,

 

                Diabetes?My god! What's happening to us old folks? How long
ago were you diagnosed with diabetes. I know Trump RX sells medications but
I'm not sure about durable medical equipment, (DME.) We want to check this
out ourselves due to Mary's needing a wheelchair. The trouble is getting her
insurance to cover the cost. Luckily she has trust money available but that
money needs to last as long as she lives. If her insurance will cover the
wheelchair she'll run less of a chance of busting the trust. This will be
important due to her upcoming knee surgery. Read on:

 

    For quite a while Mary has had chronic pain in both knees. Nonsurgical
remedies such as injections have failed to give her results leading to
consider having knee replacement surgery. It's more properly known as knee
resurfacing. Due to herscoliosis and lymphedema Mary is a high-risk case.
Since we wanted to avoid Mary being sent to various doctors who most likely
weren't experienced with high-risk knee replacement surgery we decided to go
to the University of Texas Health System in San Antonio Texas.

 

        This past Tuesday we met with Dr. Frank A. Buttacavoli an Orthopedic
Surgeon with UT Health who specializes in high-risk cases. His last name is
pronounced with a short "U." Our meeting with him was preceded by Mary
having x-rays of both knees. After Dr. Buttacavoli's staff gathered more
information we met with one of his residents before we met Dr. Buttacabvoli
who simply introduced himself as "Frank." Not wanting to mistake Frank as
another resident we asked if he was Dr. Buttacavoli at which time he told us
he was. It's not every doctor's office you go to where the doctor introduces
himself by his first name. He probably does that due to the tongue-twisting
nature of his last name. It's a nice Italian name. Before I go any further
we'll let you hear from him via the YouTube link below. Pressing "Enter"
will activate this link:

 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fLKrv6jJ3s

 

        Dr. Buttacavoli told us that Mary's right knee has lost just about
all of its cartilage. This is the material between the knee joints that
prevents bones like the Feemer and the tibia, (The upper and lower leg
bones) from "Kissing each other" what is also known as bone-on-bone contact
and along with bone spurs causes chronic knee pain. 

 

    The two main obstacles Mary must overcome for the knee replacement to
occur is control of her lymphedema and knowing how the knee replacement will
effect her ability to walk. The big dog is the limphedema which causes
swelling of limbs such as one's legs and feet. It can also result in
non-healing wounds that require a wound care specialist to treat. Both of us
have been to that rodeo several times as recently as last year. Dr.
Buttacavoli referred Mary to a Dr. Fries, (Pronounced Freeze) for evaluation
and treatment of her limphedema. Dr. Fries along with an infexious disease
specialist will need to clear her for the knee replacement operation to
proceed. As Dr. Buttacavoli told us, "We need to be sure the limphedema is
well controlled before we put metal and plastic in her knee. Prosthetic knee
joints are made of metal and plastic and can be viewed by the body as
foreign resulting in an infection.

 

    Mary will have more x-rays and a CT scan closer to the time of surgery.
Right now the main focus is controlling the risk of infection and treating
external wounds such as an ulcer that was discovered by our podiatrist
today.

 

    When we have more news we'll share it. For now we want you to keep us in
your prayers and thoughts so all of these obstacles can be overcome for the
knee replacement surgery to occur possibly later this year. 

 

Do you by any chance know other blind people that have had joint
replacements? Another gentleman in town who is also blind Larry Johnson had
one of his hips replaced 5 years ago.

 

                Have you tried working with artificial intelligence yet?
Here we use Gemini for a lot of things from creating maps for our drivers to
researching various subjects. We've been using Gemini to research knee
replacement surgery, prehabilitation, and post-op rehabilitation and have
found it to be extremely helpful. Folks are using AI for everything from
doing research, managing their business affairs,writing books, creating
images and videos, and even writing music. You can feed Gemini a prompt with
lyrics and it will turn it into a song you'd think was professionally
recorded. It would have been wonderful if it was around when we were in
school.

 

                I'm currently drafting what I'm calling my "Great big
beautiful AI prompt!" I've researched a number of events that occurred in my
past and made some very interesting discoveries. This great big beautiful AI
prompt I'm writing concerns a situation both of us lived through. If
something is going to stay around in my mind I'm putting it to constructive
use. If AI can make discoveries we can use to help others deal with matters
like this they'll be better off for it and everyone will be a winner. The
prompt creation is still in progress.

 

                Here's hoping you can upgrade your glucometer so you'll be
better able to track your diabetes. By the way did you ever remarry? Mary
and I will have been married for 41 years on March 23, 2026. All the best. 

 

    Peter Donahue

 

 

 

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