Thanks for your perspective
@Rif , I hadn't really considered the bone loss aspect and associated complications to the TKR surgery. Was the bone loss to the femur, tib/fib or both ?
It's amazing how similar our stories are, I first injured my knee when I was 15 after I'd been signed as a junior to an NRL club. If that panned out my life would have worked out much differently. Then I started riding a bike for rehab and found I was really good at it, I was in contention for the national Olympic team leading up to 2000, but a few car accidents put an end to that.
I've also had many dislocations. Mine are bit different to yours as mine are just from a lack of structure (all my ligaments are torn, so it just falls out of place when it's unloaded & if I'm not conscious of how my foot lands it's an automatic face plant. It even happens sometimes when I roll over in bed. Downhill is the worst for me too because the bottom half of my leg falls out at full extension if I don't stay conscious of every step. I go down steep hills backwards too.
I've also had a back injury and found the kettlebells to be one of the few things I can still do besides pullups and bar work etc. I don't post it in my training log but the first two hours of every day for me consists of mobility work and soft tissue massage similar to what you explained in your vid above. If I don't do that mobility work I can't walk at all.
It has been weighing heavily on my mind lately & I know that I really need a TKR (I'm well overdue really), but alas I have no health insurance so I would be at the mercy of a 3rd world standard public hospital system, the same group of people that have butchered me more times than I care to remember. I just don't trust them to cut a piece of me out and replace it with a cheap second best prosthesis.