Surgeon offered to do both knees in the same operation. Am I crazy to even consider it?

I'm 58, both knees bone on bone, the X-rays look like a matched set. I've done the PT, the weight loss (down 22 pounds, still annoyed about it), the gel, the brace on the right. Surgeon says I'm a candidate on both sides and, here's the part I didn't expect, he said because I'm relatively young and healthy he'd be willing to do them both in one go if I wanted. Or one now and one later. My choice.

My gut says rip the band-aid off. One surgery, one recovery, one round of time off work (I teach second grade, so time off is a whole thing), done. My husband's gut says absolutely not, two new knees at once and nothing to stand on. My sister says I'm nuts.

Has anybody here done both at once? Or had the choice and picked one at a time? I'd really like to hear from people who lived it before I call his office back.

I had mine fourteen months apart and I'll be honest, I never even considered both together, nobody offered. What I can tell you is how much I leaned on the first knee during the second recovery. Getting off the toilet, out of the car, up the back steps. Every single time it was the new knee from the year before doing the work. I can't picture those first two weeks with nothing to push off from.

That's not a no. It's just the thing I'd want somebody to tell me.

Ginny, I'm two weeks away from my SECOND knee (October 14th, I've been counting down on here all summer), two and a half years after the first. So I picked the slow road, although to be fair the slow road kind of picked me, the left one just wasn't bad enough back then.

Is there a part of me that wishes it was already behind me? Absolutely. But my husband is not a nurse, bless him, and I live in a split level. One good leg was the plan.

One at a time here, eight months apart, and the second one was harder than the first, not easier. Stiffer, more PT. So don't assume two separate recoveries means two easy ones. I'm glad I did it my way but I also don't want to sell you a fairy tale.

A teacher getting it all done in one summer though, I see the appeal. I really do.

This is all really helpful, and a bit humbling. Nobody here has done both at once, which I'm noticing. I found some of the before and after stories online from people who did and they're glowing, but they're also mostly on surgeon websites so who knows.

Biggest thing I didn't think about: rehab. Quiltingsue's toilet point honestly stopped me cold. Going to make a list of questions and see him again.

Ginny, I'm glad you slowed down and made a list, because this is genuinely one of the few knee decisions where both answers can be right for different women. I spent a good while on it this month and the site now has a full write-up: having both knees replaced, same day or months apart.

The short version of the medical side. A large pooled analysis comparing the two found the one-operation route had higher rates of the serious stuff, death, clots in the legs and lungs, while staging had more deep infections and lung complications, simply because there were two anaesthetics and two hospital stays. Revision rates weren't different. Which is why surgeons tend to offer the single operation only to people like you, younger and otherwise healthy, and steer everyone else toward staging. Being offered it means your surgeon thinks you're a reasonable candidate, not that it's the better choice for you.

The practical side is where you come in, and it's exactly what Sue and Carol raised: who's home, what stairs you've got, whether you'd go home or need a stretch in a rehab unit first, and how you'd feel walking back into the hospital for knee number two. Some of the questions I'd take to him are in the article. I'm not going to tell you which to pick, that's for you and him, but I'd make sure he answers the "why me" question about your own health history in plain words.

Update. Saw him Thursday with my list (Diane, I printed your questions and he laughed and said "somebody's been reading"). He was straight with me: my heart and lungs are fine and he'd do it, but he also said my right knee is clearly worse and he'd be perfectly happy doing that one in June and the left one over winter break if it still needs it. He said the left might even buy me a couple of years once I'm not limping on it.

That last part decided it. Right knee first, end of the school year, and Carol, I want the full second knee report when you're up to it so I know what I'm signing up for.