So I had my knee surgery on Tuesday. For those not in the know, I had a torn ACL – which I tore a few weeks before my wedding – and after having some trouble playing softball this summer I booked the surgery. The best surgeon possible performed the operation and I’ve got some of the best possible physio (physical therapy, for the ‘mericans reading) lined up (starting later this afternoon!), and the good thing is that this is a pretty risk-free surgery. The failure and complications rates are very, very low, provided I do my physio. The bad thing is that as good as they are at this surgery, it really knocks you out, tends to cause a lot of pain, and puts me on a long road to full recovery. But I’ll have a stronger-than-original-equipment knee on the other end of it all.
So it was with great relief that Tuesday night and all of yesterday I felt really darn good. Even after the shot to numb my leg wore off, I wasn’t really experiencing much pain and I’ve been getting around on crutches pretty well. I can get up and down and go to the bathroom all on my own, which is a big help since rIAm is wearing herself out taking care of me while 6 months pregnant! But oh my goodness has she ever been amazing…. even though I have more energy than she does!!
The frustration, though, is that it is bloody hard to do the simplest things. If I just want to re-position my leg, I tend to have to lift it, and darn it, the dead weight that is my leg is bloody heavy! I have some stretches to do, and doing those really underscores just how weak my leg is now. Trying to slide my leg up from laying flat on the bed is simple with my left – my heel goes right to my butt – but with my right, it goes maybe 2 inches. If I try to flex my quads on my left, my thigh gets hard. I try to do the same with my right, I can’t feel my quads at all… they have basically lost all the strength they had a couple days ago.
The pain killers have been useful to help me sleep through the night, and I actually took one this morning, but other than rIAm, the biggest hero the last two days has been Mr. IceMan. Incredible machine.
I’ve still been doing the Morning Brew, and last week I added a review of a great local restaurant, Jamie Kennedy Gardiner. Soon I plan to spend time getting photos uploaded, but first I need to put on some pants and figure out how to go down a flight of stairs so I can get to my first torture physio session.
