Day Four - Friday - Physical Therapy Begins in Earnest

I am losing track of counting the days, so now I am adding a day of the week...it is hard to believe that this is only 4 days after surgery!!! Each day brings noticeable improvement. According to Sally, my Physical Therapist, that quick change continues for a couple weeks, then you hit a kind of plateau, so I am going to take advantage of feeling and enjoying every little accomplishment. 

Sally came today, and this was really our first "workout." When she was here on Wednesday, she took baseline measurements of the swelling, how long it took me to navigate a short walk, discussed my plans and goals.

I think the success of physical therapy is the same as that with a personal trainer or coach: your personality and style must match in such a way that you work as a team. Sally is perfect for me. She treats me with respect for my knowledge/experience as a trainer, and still maintains the "alpha" role.

Today's big event was our session, which to me feels like the first "real" workout. First she assessed my knee, and gave me a bit of a massage on that leg. Then we accomplished one task: lying on my back, "good" (R) leg bent and "bad" (L) leg extended. Lift L leg up 12 inches, hold, lower slowly. No sweat, right? HAH! At first I could not lift the leg by myself. but by the 5th and final lift, I did it on my own. Our discussion during this time gave me insight to how much I can do, the difference between good pain and bad in this circumstance, and other exercises I can do on my own. 

As soon as I was up on my feet I noticed that me knee felt freer movement and less stiff. I walked across the room with about 90% weight on my new knee. Sweet! I took my daily walk, and increased the distance to 440 feet. I now have 117 degrees of flexion (bending) of my knee. Getting up and down from sitting no longer requires me to slide the leg forward straight, but I bend it (slowly). Later on I walked out in the yard and had my grandson water some dry areas. Progress!!

Addendum: this blog would not be honest without a few negatives: I am getting bored with moving so slow. My leg is starting to itch, and my skin is tired of the bandages. (I have a long gauze strip, with sticky edges all around that cover the incision...2 more days of this, unless the incision is still oozing. And 4 bandages to cover the 4 stitches that will have to be removed in 10 more days. These all require daily changing.) I am awful sick of sleeping on my back.