Was it worth it?

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 curl machine and gave me some different exercises to do that will replace the leg curl machine. One is called the fire hydrant:

Clever name!

My knee is definitely feeling better this week. The swelling is noticeably minimized this week compared to all other weeks. It’s hard to remember what my normal knee looked like because it has been persistently swollen for almost 2 years now, but I’m pretty sure it is less swollen now than it has been in many many months (a year even!). 

A consequence of that, however...

I know, there’s always a “however”...

is that I can feel the meniscus far more often. A few posts ago I described a squishy ratchety feeling in my knee that didn’t feel like a feeling I’d EVER had before but it was definitely a thing and it made my stomach turn. Marty presumes it’s the meniscus that I’m feeling. Gag. 

I read a few accounts of people feeling like they had something “stuck” in their knee after a meniscus transplant. That’s not really what this feels like but it IS weird and unsettling when it happens. Originally I felt it maybe once a day with certain motions only. And now that my knee is less swollen, I feel it All The Time. Ack!  It’s really such a bizarre feeling, but still, yay for less swelling right?!

Here’s a funny sight (above) I noticed when I was cleaning my house this past weekend. I have an empty water jug where I put quarters and extra dollars I have (supposedly I’m saving for a trip to Australia, at least that was the plan when I was 25...now I’d settle for a long weekend away where I’m not on duty as mom or wife or anything).  Anyway, this jug is where I drape all of my resistance bands I’ve amassed in PT. It’s kind of a ridiculous collection huh!

Speaking of cleaning (sort of) and PT...a few weeks ago, I think when Marty first came back from his trip and I was still feeling sad about having a bazillion (3) more months before I can possibly get on a real bike or swim...Marty asked me “was it worth it?”  He obviously meant the surgery. Was the surgery worth it? 

Hmmmm. 

At the time I said something like “yeah I guess so” but felt like I need more information in the coming months to make a real determination. But then this weekend I was cleaning my house, and I cleaned the whole thing (4 story row home) and realized at some point that I wasn’t in pain cleaning my house. And how amazing that was. 

Pretty much everything I did, before the surgery, hurt to some degree. And I’m tough, I can grit through the pain, and did for a long time, but I forget now how often and how easily I hurt back then. And when you’re in pain for that long, with everything you do, you forget that you shouldn't be in pain and you forget what not having pain feels like. When I have pain now, alarm bells go off and I freak out and feel like a baby who can't handle pain but really I’m afraid to ruin the work Dr Z did on my knee. But really, most of the time, I’m not in any pain. I am able to clean my house and sit on the ground with my kids and put a sock on my L foot and put my shoes on and off, all without pain right now. I sleep through the night because I don’t have pain. I don’t limp for the first 10-15 steps when I start walking after sitting for a while. Thinking about it like this makes it pretty damn obvious that YES the surgery was worth it. 

Sure, I’d love to still be running, but the pain was unbearable and life like that is not sustainable. 

Speaking of running...sorry, you knew it was going to head there eventually...I am still really missing it. Missing everything about it. It feels like I’m not quite complete and I know it’s running related. And so many people have said “you’ll find another thing that will make you just as happy...” and while it’s possible, it’s not likely. I’m being realistic, not pessimistic. And the more I accept it and own it, the easier it will be to live with, I hope. 

Running isn’t the same thing for everyone, but I know what it was for me. And it occurs to me that even I didn’t know what it meant to me until it was gone. And still speaking of running, they have an Alter-G treadmill where I do my PT. 

Marty asked me if I’d be interested in going into it at all and running some. As he put it “it’s pointless for you physically” but if I want to get the feeling of running again he could put me in it at almost completely non-weight bearing. I’m kind of torn. My inclination is to say “thanks anyway” and not torture myself. But I also feel like I don’t know where else they have these and maybe I could enjoy a few miles tiptoeing on the treadmill. 

Thoughts?

Ok, that’s it. Thanks for reading and caring!