Joy Chooses CRMC

Joy West chooses CRMC for her Orthopedic Care

I began to know I needed knee replacement surgery about four years ago. I was having walking and my knees were hurting all the time. I had gone to a larger city and different hospitals for pain relief, but they treated me like a number – herding me like cattle. I never got the “I care about you feeling” while talking with the doctors. A couple of my friends talked to me about seeking help closer to home at Coffeyville Regional Medical Center. My pain was getting to the point where it was unbearable. Going up and down stairs was getting very hard and I began using electric carts to go inside places. The pain was so bad I would wake up at night in tears.

I finally made a call to the CRMC Orthopedic Team of Dr. Menon and Ron Dunkle, APRN. I am so glad I did. After a thorough MRI, both knees were found to be rubbing bone on bone and I would need a knee replacement in both knees.

In January of 2018, I received my first knee replacement on my left knee. The care I received in the hospital and the compassion from Dr. Menon and Ron were top notch. At CRMC, everyone knew my name, I was always greeted with a smile, and they treated me like a true member of their family. That was the type of care I wanted, and the type of care I was searching for. It was at CRMC the whole time.

Everything was going excellent with the healing of my left knee until my 6-week checkup. I was taking trash to the road at my daughter’s house and I missed a step onto her porch. I knew something was wrong the second I got up and was worried about my new knee. I went to see Dr. Menon and I was correct – I did something to my knee. The knee replacement was fine, but the quad muscle that attached to my knee tore and had to be repaired. So once again, I had to have surgery on my left knee – that was in March of 2018. Once I healed and completed rehab all over again on my left knee, it was time to do the right knee.

In May of 2018, I had my right knee replacement surgery. Again, the compassionate care from my nurses in Acute Care and therapist in Rehab, to the exquisite bedside manner of Dr. Menon and Ron Dunkle, created another great experience my second time around. I felt I was an old hat at having a knee replacement due to the other two previous experiences – which were top notch and I wasn’t expecting an even better experience, but I did. Dr. Menon has so much experience and he is always educating himself for innovative and new techniques to enhance the patient outcome in his profession.

I am glad that I chose CRMC for my Orthopedic Care and my Joint replacement surgeries due to their highly trained and brilliant Orthopedic Team. Dr. Menon, Ron and their nurse Sarah, have a great working chemistry that makes the journey of joint replacement so enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong… the first two weeks out of surgery is a little rough, but the therapists know what they are doing and can get you back to your everyday life activities in no time.  I love the fact, that I can call anytime with questions and receive prompt answers; the team has a complete understanding of their patient’s pain issues and the team’s knowledge and experience made me feel very comfortable receiving surgery at CRMC.  One of the best things about their Joint replacement program is that everything is under one roof. You don’t have to travel to multiple buildings to receive certain services. You can use one elevator for Labs, X-rays, Rehab and Doctor’s visits and that means a lot when someone has bad knees. If anyone needs any type of joint replacement surgery or orthopedic surgery, I would highly recommend CRMC and Dr. Menon. You won’t be disappointed. Take it from me… I have had a lot of experience.