The sun is shining!

The sun is shining. 

Thank goodness for that. 

Any day in February that is cloudy and gloomy is just a cruel test of one’s mental health endurance. And I feel like I’ve got zero of that kind of endurance right now!

My last post was about my son, who’s been sick. Consequently, I’ve been consumed busy trying to figure out what is going on with him, and/or silently a bundle of internal nerves. I wait for him to feel terrible again on days he feels ok, and I am ready to respond in a heartbeat to whatever he has going on. 

*The negatives: I’m mentally tired. I’m grouchy. I’m not doing my knee rehab the way I should. 

*The positives:  I’m distracted from thinking about my knee and how long it is until I can do more activity. 

So about my knee:

I’m a couple of days away from 15 weeks post-op. That’s almost 4 months!  This sounds like forever, and it kind of feels like forever also. The past few weeks have sucked with my knee. I mean, it’s fine, but I really don’t feel like I’ve made much forward progress at all.

 I was doing too much walking, trying to push ahead and increase my walking mileage. I then learned that counting mileage at this stage is absurd (silly me) and I shouldn’t have mileage goals for walking for many more weeks. 

Fine.

 So I backed WAY off. And really started babying my knee again. Icing it at the end of a long day. Focusing on each step. Focusing on using my glutes and quads rather than focusing on how fast and far I can go. The runner mentality in me has been holding on for dear life through all of this and I’m wishing she would just let go and disappear already! 

My knee itself looks fine. Dr. Z was hoping for “prettier” scars...I don’t give a shit about the scars. After all of this crap, I should have big ugly scars! Or am I crazy for thinking that way?

I’m doing my exercises when I can but I’ve really put my knee (aside from making sure I take it easy) on the back burner with Aaron being sick. That needs to change. I promised myself I wouldn’t let this happen. So I started making time for my knee (and my pull-up goals) this weekend.  I noticed I’m doing more pivoting and twisting on my knee the past week also. Probably because it feels relatively good so I’m less conscious of the twisting. My knee HATES twisting though! So I’m trying to be aware. I’m trying. Always trying! 

I also have this very strange sensation in my knee that is hard to describe but it makes my stomach turn with how weird it feels. I feel this strange mushing/grinding feeling in the lateral aspect of my knee, and it can actually be heard if you listen closely. It doesn’t hurt at all, thankfully I guess, but it is the grossest/weirdest feeling ever. I guess it could be joint effusion. But why now am I feeling this if my knee is actually less swollen than previous weeks?  Scar tissue?  I might email Lisa and see if she has any thoughts. 

Oh, and look at this:

Almost NO heel-height (or I guess from this angle it’s really toe-height) difference between my L and R!  That means that the flexion on my left is almost normal. It doesn’t feel normal, meaning that the L feels very full when bent like this compared to my R which I don’t even notice being bent. But there’s no pain. And it’s great progress!  I also still have full extension which is still the most important measure. I think I’m at the point now where I’m not at risk for losing extension anymore...but I’m not positive. 

Also....

No more stegosaurus skin on my hands from the crutches!!

Not the best lighting, but I have smooth palms once again!

It really is the little things. If I don’t celebrate the little things, even the very minuscule things, I’ll be too bummed out to function some days. 

So cheers to smooth hands and good knee flexion and big impressive scars!

***********************************

Hold the phone!  

I almost “finished” this post but figured I’d wait until I got back from PT today. I’m so glad I did!!! 

Me: I’m here for my 1pm appointment 

Receptionist: ok, I’ll let Marty know you’re here

Me: you mean Michelle

Receptionist: nope, Marty is back, and he made sure he got you back 

Me: (almost in tears, huge smile on my face) you just made my day!!!

So my original PT is back from his 6 week trip. I never fully adapted to his replacement. Something with her and I didn’t click, at least on my end. And my session with him was amazing today. He made sure to tell me how incredibly well I’m doing. He’s proud of my progress. When I last saw him I was just starting to walk without crutches. I forgot where I was progress-wise when he left. 

He was glad that I got the “push myself too far” out of my system and was proud of me for self correcting. He gave me a pep talk about being sad about not working out and reminded me that long term function is the goal with ‘salvage’ (salvage is his word. I prefer preservation) surgeries. He reminded me that I never really slowed down after surgery.  I never really had a dip in my functioning so rather than gradually building back up from doing nothing to functioning more normally over time, I have felt this sustained plateau effect and feel like I’m making no progress. Most people are just now back to work full-time after a surgery like this. I went back during week 3 post-op. I was driving by the end of week 1, off of pain medicine by week 1, etc. 

Bottom line: Marty gets me and I am SO glad to have him back. 

He wants me to start doing most of my PT at the gym. He says he trusts my judgement and trusts that I won’t push myself too much. So I have a gym regiment with guidelines for progression, and I will check in a few times over the next few weeks to see how it’s going, then I’ll only check in monthly and work on progressing to other exercises. He said this way it will feel mentally more like a workout and less like “therapy”. And as much as I’m a fan of therapy in general, I appreciate this approach so much. 

Also he said the mushy feeling I feel in my knee that makes my stomach turn is likely the new meniscus sliding around with my knee movement. Gag. It’s normal apparently. Some people feel like there’s something stuck in their knee joint, I feel like there’s a crunchy glob of silly-putty being mushed around in there. Yuck. 

That’s all. 

Happy to have ended on this positive note.

Thanks for caring, as always!