Today I tried a trick I figured out a while ago.\u00a0 If an exercise is giving me trouble, do it with the \u2018good\u2019 leg for a while, paying close attention to how I move when there\u2019s plenty of strength and no pain.\u00a0 Then switch over to the bad leg and try to duplicate the exact move.\u00a0 The exercise that is giving me trouble is still step-downs.\u00a0 I really haven\u2019t progressed this week on these, and it seems, if anything, that they\u2019re becoming more painful to do.\u00a0 Anyway, after paying close attention to form with my good leg\/knee I tried again and they seemed at least a bit easier to perform.<\/p>\n
Another disconcerting thing: The passive extension has started to hurt more than it did before.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t like the weird way that my progress moves forward then backward, swelling goes up and down, pain decreases then increases again.\u00a0 With luck it\u2019s nothing bad and just part of the normal process.<\/p>\n
Today is the first day that I drove the car to work.\u00a0 Parked in the \u2018close\u2019 ramp, but up on the 6th<\/sup> floor.\u00a0 That meant a lot of steps to traverse but not such a long walk (one city block in St. Paul).<\/p>\n There must be something psychological about going to Physical Therapy; this morning my knee felt better than it had in a long time while I was doing my PT.\u00a0 (Later when walking in to the PT area I was walking the fastest I have since my surgery.)\u00a0 Passive extension still feeling a bit off, and Step-Downs still giving me trouble, but otherwise a smooth start to the day.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have time to ice before heading out for Tria.<\/p>\n Kammy drove and I sent off a couple emails, then we talked about my ongoing fantasy of creating (or even imagining) a fully functioning Utopian society.\u00a0 She shares the view of many (most?) people that human nature is basically incompatible with Utopia; that once you take away any struggle that people might experience to acquire basic comforts that they all become sloths.\u00a0 I have to admit that it is one of my stumbling blocks in my mental exercise trying to imaging how we\u2019d get from here to there (there being utopia).<\/p>\n Once we got to Tria we checked in and I paid for my last-week\u2019s visit too; then it was back to the PT room with Adam.\u00a0 He immediately noticed I was off of the crutches and watched me carefully as I walked back.\u00a0 He said I was looking strong.\u00a0 He examined my knee and asked about my progress; I complained about the painful passive extensions and the Step-Downs.\u00a0 Next he took flexion and extension measurements, both of which were great!\u00a0 I got to -5 degrees with extension and 125 degrees of flexion which was 4 more than last week.\u00a0 Adam said that the passive extension might be hurting just because I\u2019m at the full extension and there\u2019s still swelling\u2026and that I can drop that exercise going forward unless it feels good to do it.<\/p>\n Next he took me over to a stationary bike to limber up a bit.\u00a0 I talked with him about leg stiffness\u2026it is stiff so much of the time.\u00a0 He said it was something that would be with me for the better part of 6 months, and that it would come and go with the swelling that will also take that long to be rid of.<\/p>\n Adam led me over to the horizontal squats machine and he had me do some exercises; first both legs then just the bad leg.\u00a0 It felt good to work it this way.<\/p>\n After a few minutes of those we went over by the mirror to look at my form and progress on the Step-Downs and Knee Bends.\u00a0 Watching me struggle, he pointed out that I was going way slower than he recommended, and showed me how to tweak the exercise to make it better (and easier) for me.\u00a0 My Knee Bends were coming along well so he had me try a couple of single-legged ones\u2026they are hard but I can feel how good they\u2019ll be soon.\u00a0 He said I should start doing 15 normal then 5 single legged Knee Bends and slowly reverse the proportion over the next week or so.<\/p>\n I was feeling a bit short of time so I didn\u2019t get iced with the game-ready today\u2026Next time!<\/p>\n Hey, my leg is feeling a bit better, and the swelling is down some more\u2026I can see my kneecap, well almost.<\/p>\n Stay the course!<\/p>\n Walking: Almost normal pace today\u2026Almost.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been watching morning news channels while exercising, and I think that I was better off for not knowing what was going on in the world.\u00a0 During my evening PT I\u2019ve been watching \u201cThe IT Crowd\u201d.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never heard of it it\u2019s a British sit-com about a couple of IT guys and their boss who knows nothing about IT.\u00a0 Mindless humor ensues.<\/p>\n As for the PT itself, it is going slower now (less progress per day) but that\u2019s just as Adam said it would.\u00a0 Getting range of motion back happens pretty quickly, getting all the strength back will take the rest of the 6 months.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what happened today, exactly.\u00a0 I think maybe I stood up too much.\u00a0 Whatever the reason, by the time I got home my leg was pretty swollen and walking was harder than it\u2019s been recently.\u00a0\u00a0 I suppose that some elevation and icing will do me well this evening.<\/p>\n Today marks four weeks since surgery.\u00a0 Adam (my physical therapist) says I\u2019m doing well, well ahead of the curve.\u00a0 It feels sloooowwww though.\u00a0 When it feels slow it\u2019s good to reflect on what all has happened and just how far I\u2019ve come in four weeks.\u00a0 Stairs are very manageable (up is easy, down needs handrail help); Walking is almost back to normal pace most of the time; Getting up from and down to floor is pretty reasonable; Driving? No problem.\u00a0 What\u2019s left to go?\u00a0 I still have a ways to go before I\u2019ll kneel again, and there\u2019s no running yet.\u00a0 Obviously sports are a several months off too.<\/p>\n So, my initial Injury was at the end of February, pre-hab lasted 6 weeks, now I\u2019m 4 weeks beyond surgery.\u00a0 I am 2 \u00bd months into an approximately 7 \u00bd month process.\u00a0 Hey I\u2019m 1\/3 of the way done with this.\u00a0 From here on out it\u2019s just a matter of staying the course with PT and waiting for everything to heal and strengthen up.\u00a0 I can\u2019t decide if 5 more months feels like a long time or a short time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day 22 (Wednesday, May 18th) Today I tried a trick I figured out a while ago.\u00a0 If an exercise is giving me trouble, do it with the \u2018good\u2019 leg for a while, paying close attention to how I move when there\u2019s plenty of strength and no pain.\u00a0 Then switch over to the bad leg and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Day 24 (Friday, May 20th)<\/h2>\n
Day 25 (Saturday, May 21st)<\/h2>\n
Day 26 (Sunday, May 22nd)<\/h2>\n
Day 27 (Monday, May 23rd)<\/h2>\n
Day 28 (Tuesday, May 24th)<\/h2>\n