Building a Super Knee

I've been a bad blogger the past few weeks, no joke. But I thought I'd throw in a quick update.

Physical therapy is going really well. Since I last posted, I've made a lot of progress; I've definitely crossed the line and am better now than I was before surgery. My physical therapist is constantly butting up against the limits of what he's "allowed" to have me do at 2-3 weeks out, so a lot of the exercises are getting pretty damn easy.

Friday I got to jump on the elliptical, and got my HR up over 150 without a peep from my knee. I've also been working on walking increasingly longer distances so I can start walking to campus again, and today I made it pretty comfortably.

This next week we're supposed to toy with some "light impact exercises", and see how it reacts.

Thats all for now. Catch you guys later.

"Poster Child"

That's what the physical therapist said.

Apparently a combination of the surgery going well and me doing what I was told lead to my knee looking damn good just five days after surgery. The PT couldn't remember seeing a knee with absolutely no swelling this quick before. He actually measured it vs. my other knee, and they were exactly the same.

That said, I like my new PT and the whole atmosphere at his place. At most PT's I've been to (and I've seen my fair share), it's always been the majority old folks who broke because they stopped using stuff or they fell. Every patient here was an athlete, and the therapists were high energy and motivational too. Bingo.

Today he started me out easy. We're working on basic range of motion and some simple exercises to wake things up a bit. From when I walked in, I went from bending my knee about 30 degrees to 85-90 when I left. We also did some exercises to make my quad more responsive, and I could flex it a whole lot more when I left than when I went in. I'm also supposed to drop the crutches unless I'm going a long distance.

Now I just have to go through this routine 2-3 times a day, and the progress should stay pretty steady. The plan is about 4 weeks of this fairly easy stuff while my knee heals, then we'll start working towards more fun stuff. Right now he said the goal is to be running in 3 months, but he thinks it could go quicker if this fast recovery keeps doing what it's doing.

Eww, knee pictures

I'll start with a "close up." Maybe you can see it, maybe you can't. The quality on my camera wasn't quite good enough to get the details that great. The bottom bone is my femur, the top one is my knee cap. If you look carefully, you can see a nice groove that my femur has been working in my knee cap. After surgery, that groove is still there, but the rubbing shouldn't happen anymore.


The rest of these pretty much go without explanation, so they just get captions.

The sleeve after getting the bandage off.

View of both incisions

Side shot?

Further away

Front shot. And my crotch (croppings for losers)

Days Four & Five

Everything is going well the past few days. I'm just taking it easy, keeping it elevated, etc. I can get around my apartment without the crutches, but I still try to use them the majority of the time.

Also, my hat's off to potheads, because I don't know how they can stand being stoned all the damn time. After three days, I had enough of it and just stopped taking the vicodin. I'm taking tylenol now; I've been through worse in the past. I'd rather have a little pain if it means I get to have a short term memory.

Yesterday the swelling in my knee was going down, so the bandage on my leg slipped way down. We rewrapped it, although I think there was some intricacy to how they had it wrapped initially because it definitely feels different. Damn thing is getting itchy too, but I should be getting it off tomorrow. I'll be surprised (and disappointed) if I don't.

Thats all for now. I'll probably have more after I see the doctor in, uh, 7 hours.