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Because sometime you just have to laugh through the pain. And if you
can't do that, laugh over here. You can't lose, really.
06/06/2004 - 06/13/2004
06/13/2004 - 06/20/2004
06/20/2004 - 06/27/2004
06/27/2004 - 07/04/2004
07/04/2004 - 07/11/2004
07/18/2004 - 07/25/2004
07/25/2004 - 08/01/2004
08/01/2004 - 08/08/2004
08/08/2004 - 08/15/2004
09/05/2004 - 09/12/2004
10/03/2004 - 10/10/2004
11/28/2004 - 12/05/2004
04/10/2005 - 04/17/2005
06/26/2005 - 07/03/2005
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Thursday, August 12, 2004
WEEK 9
Today I...
Wait, I didn't tell you about what happened on Week 8, did I? Well, let's go back to that then...
WEEK 8 (belatedly)
So, on Week 8 I went to both the doctor and the PTist. Doctor first.
Dr. Don did his checkup and said that everything looked pretty good about my knee except for the swelling. So for that, I got more drugs (prescription Naproxen--essentially, an expensive version of Aleve). He also said that although my knee feels strong, it's really at its weakest point right now. This is because there are blood vessels in knee that are growing back into the cellular matrix of my bone density mitochondria blah blah blah...
Okay, he actually had a pretty good explanation of it, but I can't remember what he said. Suffice it to say, at eight weeks the knee is weak, and it will only get better. I know this is true because he drew me a chart. It looked something like this. And if that isn't scientific, what is?
He also told me no golf until 12 weeks. Grrr. What's worse is that although August is usually full of 100-degree days in Oklahoma, this year has had NO 100-degree-plus days. It was even in the mid-70s earlier this week. The weather is mocking me. CURSE YOU, WEATHER!!
Anyway, on to PT. I mentioned casually to my PTist that I could go up stairs fairly easily, but going down stairs was still tough. Never mention anything "casually" to a physical therapist. Last week's new exercise was "step-downs," where you stand on a box with the bad leg and lower yourself down until your good leg alllllllmost touches the floor. Three sets of 10, and by the end, my leg felt very, very wobbly. It's always a bit humbling to see just how much of your muscle tone has gone away.
So, now that we've taken care of last week, on to...
WEEK 9.
Hey, whaddya know! It turns out those step-downs are actually pretty effective! I'm not running down stairs yet, but I can go down them at a reasonable speed now. In fact, if I'm on level ground with no obstructions, I don't even limp that much anymore. I can now meet people I haven't seen in a while and they don't realize I've had knee surgery until we get to a staircase. And I can sit in a chair comfortably. Or sit in a theater without having to have my leg stick out in the aisle. Why, you'd almost think I was healing or something!
To quantify that, I got my range-of-motion measured again this week. 139 degrees! Woo-hoo! By comparison, the good leg is 147 degrees. There are still some differences, though. For instance, I need to pull on the bad leg to get it to 139, whereas I can flex the good leg unaided to about 145. In fact, my PTist told me that I'd probably get past 147 on the bad leg in the short term simply because my muscles have atrophied so much that there would be less mass to get in the way of flexion. Blah. I'm just happy to be able to sit in a chair again.
And the best news of the week, I now only have to go to PT once every two weeks instead of weekly. That also means I probably won't post again for another couple of weeks. And that should be 11 weeks out, tantalizingly close to the magical 12 week limit where the collective health professionals will let me run again. See you then!
Updated at 10:12 PM
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