Over the hump today! (9 days post-op)
Hello friends!
Holy cow the past 9 days have been a whirlwind! I did not expect to go from walking pre-surgery and feeling relatively normal to being totally handicapped after the surgery.
I spent the first few days completely unable to get off the couch. My father who is visiting even debated getting me a portable toilet 🙈. My pain was so bad I had to call the on-call number to ask about extra painkillers and couldn't sleep at all. We have little sets of two stairs all over our house to get into the front door, into the bedroom, into the bathroom etc. and every time even with crutches I felt like I was going to fall. I had no idea I was going to be so handicapped. I started PT on Wednesday and they hammered my knee so hard just putting downward pressure on it, and it was the worst pain I ever felt in my life. Then we scheduled like 19 more sessions and I thought my life was going to end.
Anyways, yesterday I started feeling my quad muscle firing again. I realized I could flex it and suddenly that really helped me put pressure to straighten my knee on my own. My leg started getting so much straighter and this morning I got up 2 stairs, down 2 stairs, made myself a cup of coffee, then went back up 2 stairs
ALL WITHOUT CRUTCHES!
The walking is by no means smooth and is more of a step and scootch scenario but I was so happy!
Anyways I just wanted to share this in hopes that folks can read it and not feel alone as they navigate being way more fucked up than anticipated (if that's the case for you like it was for me) and that you'll keep making progress!