Time to Get Back on My Feet

 

Friday morning, I awoke with my new ACL and a little more pain than the day before.  Yesterday the anesthesia and nerve block from surgery kept me from really feeling the pain of my knee.  It was my hamstring from where the took some of the muscle to use for the graft that hurt worse for me, but today my hamstring felt just a tab sore whereas my knee felt like it had been stabbed repeatedly.  

Keepin' It Gansta!

 

The pain and a reminder from Chris that my I would get more benefit out of first scheduled PT appointment in a couple of hours had me taking the painkiller he had in his hand.  While I originally wanted to get out of this painkiller-free, I soon found that maybe I was a bit naïve.  Purdue Pharma and the Sackler’s aside, I could get benefit from this pill for the short-term.

Before surgery, my doctor’s nurse asked me if there were any PT’s I wanted to schedule my appointments with, and I said yes.  I knew two people there.  I was at AJ’s wedding because his wife and I were friends from my former place of employment.  The other was Curtis who I know because I have his daughter in tumbling class.  I felt comfortable with both of them because they have an idea at my level of activity and a good understanding of what I have been able to do and what I want to get back to do.  Not that I need anyone pushing me – I do that enough for 12 people at least – but because they would also know when to back off from pushing me as well!

My appointment with AJ was at 9:30 a.m. and before we left, I received a RomTech Portable Connect from my doctor.  Insurance had cleared me to use it for 6 weeks, the tech explained.  The machine looks like half of an exercise bike that you need a chair to sit at and use.  The program is a 12-minute program and for 10 minutes it would pedal for me and bend and straighten my leg little bit little.  I can adjust the pedal for more bending and straightening as I feel comfortable.  After the first ten minutes are up, I must pedal for 2 minutes on my own, keeping my RPMs between 15-55 a minute.  The first 30 seconds on this machine were a little murderous, but I went with it.  The pedaling on my own was definitely a challenge, but not as physically painful as the first 30 seconds.

Finally, it was time for my appointment with AJ.  Chris, ever the trooper, helped me out and into the car and then dropped me at the front door.  He parked and then caught up to me right before I got onto the elevator.  Yes, I was definitely moving at a glacial pace, cue Miranda Priestley.              

 AJ was very happy to see me up and moving especially after he found out I was just now 24 hours post-op.  My doctor’s office likes to get people moving pretty quickly afterwards, but not everyone feels up to it and cancels is what he told us.  But it’s important to go no matter how crumby you feel because they can look at your dressings and see how things are healing.  If you put off the appointment, then you go the whole weekend without seeing them and they can’t address any possible needs with how things are healing until days later.

After he checked my wounds out, we started off easy getting into therapy.  He helped me gently get my leg straight and made sure I was comfortable before we started doing ankle pumps (flexing and pointing the toes).  This honestly felt really good, so when he told me to do these every hour, I was happy to comply.  Next, we did quad sets.  Quad sets are sitting with you leg out straight in front of you and contracting the quad.  The goal, as I was told by another PT friend who just opened her own boutique, is to get movement of the kneecap.  I didn’t have near the movement I worked to get pre-op, but there was a little still there.  Happy with that, we moved onto knee bends with me using a yoga strap to pull and bend my knee up.  After 15 of those, I was able to achieve a bend 83° (which will be called flexion now).  The last exercise we did was leg lifts.  I laid all the way back, bent my right leg up to stabilize and focused on contracting my left quad muscle and raising my leg.  AJ helped with the first one which is always the hardest and had me do ten of them.  He gave me a break and then made me do 12 more this time!  Before I left, he had me lie on my back with my leg out straight and elevated against the back of the therapy table and iced my leg.  This was by far the worst part of the session – even way worse than that first leg lift!

After that, Chris and I went home to chill and watch some Law and Order episodes we saved for this recovery time.  I made sure to keep doing me ankle pumps and took some cat naps as well.  Chris served me a delicious lunch in addition to the delicious omelet he made me for breakfast.  After only eating club crackers yesterday, I was loving all the protein and leafy greens he was giving me today!  I also managed to complete three sessions on the RomTech – my tech made sure to tell me to only do as many sessions as I was comfortable doing in the beginning.

As the afternoon wore on, I was getting more positive and upbeat about my recovery.  True, I didn’t feel great, but I was finally back on track to getting back to running.  It always gets worse before it gets better and that’s where I was right now.  But I could handle it because I can handle anything.

Ah, my naiveté…

Yes, it is true that I can handle it.  It’s also true that it gets worse before it gets better…and it was about to get way more painful, and way worse.