Jim Carney, the BJ's bionic man

Carney’s knees match again

Well, now former BJ reporter and sometime radio call-in show host Jim Carney has TWO store-bought knees.

BJ reporter Katie Byard, Jim’s wife, writes:

“Jimmy got a new knee today!” It was his right knee.

Now Jim has a matched set because the left knee was replaced 15 months ago.

Jim on Day 2

Last time, Jim wrote:

“Turned a corner at 6.5 weeks when nothing hurt or ached. Couldn’t be happier.”

Jim keeps the medical profession’s bank accounts overflowing.

He had two back surgeries and both knees replaced since 2012.

He broke his hip on a skateboard with son Michael in 1999. That brought pins and screws.

Dr. Ian Gradisar did the knees at the Crystal Clinic.

Dr. Richard Brower did the spinal fusion in November.

Jim writes:

“Haven't been able to take a long walk since early April.” I think that was about the time Paula and I ran into Jim at the Daffofil Trail in Furnace Run Metro Park.

 

When his body doesn't betray him, Jim handles the mishaps himself. It's part of Ol' Blue Walls legend that, on his lunch break, Jim hurried across the street to beat oncoming traffic, leaped onto the curb -- and smashed his head into a sign.

 

That one took 21 stitches.

Although the first knee arthroplasty wasn’t performed till 1968, there are 719,000 knee replacements in America every year.

I had mine done a half-dozen years ago. 

For the first two weeks at Edwin Shaw rehab (before they closed that building down), they had me on happy pills & drips so I don’t remember much.

But I’ll never forget the next two weeks – the pain. After all, they cut into your knee bones to insert the scientific stuff.

Then I spent 2 months in therapy at Akron General’s Sports & Fitness Center in Tallmadge, which has a fantastic staff.

No more pain. Before the surgery, my knee hurt as if someone was taking a chainsaw to it. Then they used a medical chainsaw, sort of, before doctors inserted the artificial knee.

It’s tricky getting in and out of cars and into those cramped concert and theater seats and it gets stiff if you don’t flex it every 10 or 15 minutes, but it sure beats the pain of the human knee gone wrong.

And it hasn’t hurt my golf game at all. In 26 rounds in The Villages, Florida, I’m averaging just a shade under 39 on executive courses.

It only gets better from here, Jim, as long as you maintain it through exercise. But you know that from your first knee replacement.

And you have plenty of company: About every retired NFL lineman in the country.