More Progress

It's been tough work in physical therapy this week. On Tuesday, I showed up at 7:30 only to realize that my appointment was not until 8:00 a.m. But my PT noticed that I came in early and told me to get started on my exercises. So after a 30 minute period where I not only did my stretches, but a number of strengthening exercises on the ball and with Dynabands, I had my treatment. For the next 30 minutes my PT did deep massage and manipulation of the IT band in an attempt to break up scar tissue. This involved her getting her fingers UNDER the IT band and manually separating it from the muscle tissue below, where it was stuck.

This is one of my least favorite activities in PT, but it is absolutely essential to making sure that the muscles around my knees are ready to work once I have the surgery. I cannot afford to lose any rehab time. The recovery I have seen after the first 3 months post-op will set the level of recovery I will be capable of having, forever. So I bear the pain and even pay people to do it. (Go figure.) Following the treatment, she sent me back to the exercise area to do yet another 30 minutes of strengthening.

After my session on Tuesday, I spent the day at work with my leg wrapped in ice packs, popping Motrin and Vicodin like candy. I slept moderately well on Tuesday night, but by Wednesday night the pain was escalating. By Thursday morning, I was in bad shape. I barely got to PT at 8 a.m. and my therapist, Kristin, knew by how I was moving. She termed it "a minor setback."

My treatment on Thursday was really just gentle adjusting and massage, and then stretching. I did only stretching on Friday and Saturday, and then again today. Tomorrow I have PT again, and I think I'm ready to add back the strengthening exercises.

Sometimes it feels like I'm getting nowhere, but I am walking straighter and my back no longer hurts--the pain is isolated down around the knee joint and muscles, which is where it belongs. On the other hand, I was trying to do a yoga plank to determine the strength in my core muscles--holding the pose for anything over 30 seconds is considered good--and couldn't even get into the position, much less hold it for any length of time. So that tells me we have a LONG way to go!

Onward and upward.