Marla’s Story: A New Knee and Pain Free

When Marla Simon Boone no longer could ignore her painful knee, she visited orthopaedic surgeon Don Delcamp, MD. Soon, she was undergoing total knee replacement surgery at Upper Valley Medical Center.

Simon Boone, who along with husband, Steve, keeps active riding bikes, walking, flying, scuba diving and restoring aircraft, had visited Dr. Delcamp’s office over the years. Following an arthroscopy in the mid-1990s, Dr. Delcamp told her it would be a matter of time before a new knee would be required.

“He wasn’t pushy. He just said, ‘You’ll tell me when it is time to do it. You will know,’” recalled the Covington resident. The time came in September 2009.

“It was very easy to get scheduled in the timeframe I wanted,” she said. “That was really important because I had lots of things going on, including a diving trip nine weeks later I didn’t want to miss.”

Simon Boone, who is a certified registered nurse anesthetist, is no stranger to the surgery suite. As a patient, she saw it from a different perspective. Starting with her prep in same day surgery, she was impressed with her care at UVMC.

“They were just wonderful; very kind, attentive and very respectful of a person’s privacy. And the warm blanket, provided by a nurse known as the ‘warm blanket nurse,’ was much appreciated,” she smiled, adding, “The surgery itself could not have gone better.”

After her release, came six weeks of physical therapy (PT) at UVMC’s Outpatient Care Center/North in Piqua. “They were nice, but no-nonsense, which was what I needed,” she said of the PT staffers. “They were there to help me get my knee working again and get me mobile.”

And, they succeeded. By early December 2009, Simon Boone was on her way to her scuba diving date off Cozumel.