Sage advice here, with a common thread of DO THE PT RELIGIOUSLY.
I had TKR on my left a little over a year ago. It went pretty well.
I had my right replaced 6 months ago. That was complicated by the fact that literally about 3 minutes of coming home, I managed to fall on the fresh knee. Pain so intense I literally threw up. That fall landed me in a rehab facility for two weeks. First night there I fell again, directly on the knee again. [bleep] me runnin' that pain will make a believer out of you. Complicated the recovery mostly by slowing me down. Getting a little better every day, "little" being the operative word.
FWIW the Docs told me I had the worst knees they had ever seen.
The procedure has been described to me as brutal and Medieval. I know theres a hammer involved, possibly sledge for all I know.
My main motivation was wanting to eliminate the arthritis in both knees. A flare up would literally keep me in bed for a couple days.
I am glad I had it done.
Most ortho procedures involve saws, hammers, screws, rods, and tourniquets, all with the attendant pounding, and sawing, and noise — The carpenters of the OR.
Notice the mostly bloodless field. It because there is a large tourniquet placed on the thigh and it’s pressure is increased significantly over the patients blood pressure to hold perfusion to the leg to almost nothing. However, a lot of patients have thigh pain afterwards as I believe there is some degree of a mechanical crush injury of those soft tissues. No blood to the leg is a reason they try to get these done in an hour to an hour and a half.
