Knee Surgery – Days Counting

Posted by DetectiveEstes in Detective Estes' Corner      No comments

Feb
12

This is the continuing saga of surgery and recovery from a partial left knee replacement.

Day 13 is Monday. It is actually 2 weeks since the surgery, but I started the blog on the day after and called it Day 1 after the surgery. Don’t be confused. I’ll take of that for the both of us!

Getting better is a wonderful feeling. I was told from the beginning that if I do my exercises and therapy that things would progress faster. Today I felt the benefit of that when I was able to go for short house walks without any crutch. Getting around on one crutch is quite easy now.
Day 14. I am able to begun to walk occasionally with just one crutch! Not walking far though. I have not used 2 crutches since Day 13. I am doing therapy exercises about twice a day. Therapy is down to Tuesday & Thursday. Also on Day 14, therapy increased to include leg locks by placing a rolled up towel under my heel raising it up about two inches. Then the quad muscles around the knee were tensed to force the knee into locked position, essentially bending it backwards for 5 counts. I had 10 reps of this. Next therapy increase was to increase bending by step-ups. First the step was 4 inches, now its 6 inches. The therapist is attempting to get my knee up to walking up stairs. I did 20 reps of this. The leg up and forcing knee down causes my knee to be painful when I lie down at night. Just one of those things I expect, that will go away after awhile.

Day 16, therapy increased to 10 minutes on a bike, rocking back and forth. Hallelujah, I actually was able, after some minutes, to run the pedal all the way backwards around the circle. After a couple more ‘rocks’, I was also able to turn the pedal all the way around, going forward. The forward was most difficult and I was not able to do this more than 3 times. My knee would ache at the pressure points of severe bending, but as soon as the pressure was released the ache would stop immediately.

The therapy is almost like a competition with one’s self. To do more than the mind is saying the body can do. It’s’ a good feeling; to go past the barriers that the mind sets up.

Over the weekend, I was able to let go of my one crutch and walk with no crutch. Although in doing that, there was a limp in the left and my hip began to ache as it would take up the slack where the knee quads were not doing the job of walking that they were supposed to do. However, also over the weekend, my right knee began to ache. That’s really too bad. I thought/hoped that wouldn’t happen again for a long time, or never. Mostly that right knee ached when I was walking without a crutch. So perhaps that ache will stop when the left knee is 100%. I surely hope so.

On Day 19, I attended church again. This time in church, I found a place I could extend my leg outside the pew. But then I determined I didn’t need to do that much as my leg could bend some without ache now. What I could not do, however, was kneel on the kneeler during mass. This had to be fixed. Once back from church, I placed a pillow on the floor and attempted to kneel on it. Two problems immediately – One was that my left knee refused to bend to that position. The other was that the surgical scar was not ready for weight yet. There had to be a way to overcome this.

Later on Day 19, I went to a movie. The seats were standard theatre seats, but still, I was able to sit with my left foot in the aisle which, like church, was comfortable enough. Yet, I figured if this seating was possible, then how was it that the kneeling was not possible. The kneeling needed to be investigated further.

On my return from the theatre, I again placed a pillow on the floor. I knelt until my knee would not bend further, and then caught myself on my hands on the chair arms. From there, I pushed my feet back some so I could kneel further without bending my leg further. Continuing on until my knees were all the way down but holding my weight on my hands in kind of a bent over push-up position. V E R Y uncomfortable! After a short time of holding my weight up, I slowly let my weight down onto my knees and released my hands from my push-up position until all the weight was on my knees. Success!! I stayed there about 10 seconds and pushed my weight off my knees and stood up. I’ve practiced every day since then. An additional benefit is teaching myself how to do kind of odd push-ups so I’m not totally without any exercise.

This day is Day 21. It’s been 22 days since my surgery. Things are progressing well. My knee continues to ache some. I’m still having little sleep from the aching while the knee is held in one place when in bed, or bending and holding in one place. Getting not very much sleep due to the aching.