Bowling After Knee Replacement (Gary Avoids the MUA)

An interview with Gary Pendergraff

The interview was conducted by PJ Ewing. Click the Play Button above to listen to the full interview. Gary describes two months of rehab struggles and then his return to bowling after knee replacement and avoiding a Manipulation Under Anesthesia.

Editor’s Note - Bowling After Knee Replacement

The total knee replacement (TKA) was on December 3, 2019. By mid-January, it was apparent that the recovery had stalled. On February 4, 2020, two months after his knee replacement, at only 88º of flexion, Gary started on X10.

Gary's Story - My Stalled Recovery

In mid-January had to go back and see my surgeon and he said I was at 88º on the knee. It wasn't going well. He sent me to physical therapy center and they again tried to push the knee as hard as they could, three days a week I was getting tortured. It was all the way, you can say it. They tried to bend it as far as they can without making me pass out.

That's something I do not want to remember. The highest they could get was 95º Not a good place.

I had to push through it. Everybody that I talked to at church and other people that we went to, just got pushed in pain. So my philosophy was I was going to push it, push it and push it. Even when I started with the X10, I pushed it. I talked to some people and they said, “Oh, you can do it.” I said, “Well, I'm going to do it.” And that's how I approached it. And, the rewards paid off for me.

Finding the X10

The first time I heard about it was from a PT that I had the first time. She said that there was a machine out there that would bend it. I kept that in the back of my mind, and she said, well, Oklahoma doesn't recognize that yet. But, I kept the X10 in my mind.

After the first doctor visit and the threat of an MUA, the second physical therapist said, it isn’t getting better. It looks like an MUA, manipulation of the leg. Not good!

I got on the internet and I searched out knee therapy machines and that's when the X10 popped up. And so I researched it. I found out all the information about it. I talked to my wife and I said, we need to try it because we're not getting anywhere with traditional physical therapy.

Providence

I wanted confirmation, that I was making the right decision. And this was funny because I have a doctor that is in Owasso, Oklahoma. He's my primary care doctor and he was in South Tulsa at a bank. This is a town of about 500,000 people. Who do you think I ran into at the bank? And I showed him pictures of the X10, he looked at it on my cell phone. I said, “This is what I'm going to do because physical therapy is not working.” He looked at it and he said it should work because it works similar to how they exercise shoulders and stuff.

The support that I had from X10, Tricia and Corky: we ministered to each other, all three of us. We made our own circle and I was so happy and I think the Lord put the right people in the right place for me.

Working on the X10

When I got the machine, Cork set it up for me in my home. We were getting somewhere around 88­º to 90º the first night. As I started, Tricia got on board with me, I think the next day. We always had a prayer of course when we spoke. I told her that I would run about an hour a day in each session.