Moving Forward...life before, during and after a meniscus transplant

The word Wishful  means to have hope for something.  The word Wistful means to have a melancholy longing for something. The words are so close, just one letter off, but they have very different meanings. This image very accurately depicts my mood lately.  Definitely more wistful than wishful.  Wistful for nice weather, running, running, running, doing anything that makes me feel like I am doing something physical! ************************************ My husband would likely argue that this picture is a far more accurate depiction of my mood lately, but this is my blog so I choose wistful kitten over raging bitch cat... ************************************* Regardless of which cat persona you go with, both are how I’ve felt lately (maybe one more than the other, but that’s not the point). And consider this fair warning in case you bump into me on the street...but actually try not to bump into me, my knee is still fragile and that’s a sure-fire way to see

In my last post, I talked about what a great week I was having with my knee. It felt like I had really come to the next level  in terms of recovery from surgery. While I was (am still) being very  conservative with my walking ( she types with a big frown on her face ), I felt overall much stronger and confident in my knee. Swelling was down, walking was more natural and less intentional. It all felt (spoiler alert: still feels) really great. I was even having dreams about doing things I haven’t done in a long time (silly things like sitting cross-legged).  And, here I am, sitting cross legged!  This scenario isn't exactly your typical dream come true  BUT, I did dream about it, and I can now do it.  So. Yeah. A dream come true.  Sorry if you were expecting something way more exciting. I am legitimately excited about this. When I showed Marty (Physical Therapist) he cringed and told me to be careful, then he commented on how little it takes to make me happy. Yup. That’s me in a nuts

Today is 18 weeks since my surgery. For some reason, leading up to today, I felt like this was a milestone week, a momentous week, but I couldn’t figure out why. Nothing major has changed. Aside from my knee being less swollen, there’s not a lot going on that’s different than the 17 week surgeryversary (totally my own word that I made up, you are welcome to use it as well if you ever need to mark the time after a big surgery in your life). And then it occurred to me that the Hebrew word for life is chai (חי) which happens to have a numerical value of 18. The number 18 has spiritual meaning to Jews, and anything that equals 18 is thought to have a connection to life. I’m not typically drawn to these kinds of parallels, but Judaism draws me in, in ways I never expected.  So with that, I’m taking this 18 week surgeryversary, linking it to life, and looking forward to what this new "not running reconstructed knee" life has to offer me. Ok, I know that sounds chees

Saturday was my 4 months (by calendar) since surgery anniversary. Or 17 weeks plus a few days. It’s funny because I noticed that I’ve stopped focusing on Thursdays (the surgery was on a Thursday) as a measure of time for me. Thursdays have meant (leading up to the surgery) “x number of weeks left until surgery” and since surgery Thursday has been my post-op count up. Count up to what, I have no clue (biking, swimming, walking around wherever I want). I think because the milestones seem so spaced out at this point, I’m losing interest in the counting.  Last week was a frustrating week. I had this weird lateral posterior L knee pain that came out of nowhere on Monday. No weird twists or turns, slip and falls, no extra walking,etc. to explain the pain but damn if it didn’t hurt like hell! I took the whole week off of rehabbing the knee, everything I tried to do hurt, so I just rested. Rest helped. When I saw Marty on Friday for PT he suggested it was hamstring strain from the leg cur