Recovering Just Fine

I am recovering well.  Some days it feels like I am making no progress but generally I am improving steps all the time 🙂  Before surgery I had very limited mobility in my knee.  I could bend it less than 110 degrees (90 degrees is a right angle) and it would straighten no more than 85% (-15 degrees).  At this time–5 weeks after surgery–I can now bend my knee 106 degrees (and will hit my personal goal of 110 degrees by the end of next week) and can straighten it consistently at almost 0 (some days -2, some days -3).  I am in the process of learning how to walk again in that I have walked with this limp for nearly 10 years.  I have to retrain my muscles to make the leg straight as I step down.  Ever had to think about how you walk as you walk?  Yeah, you forget what you are doing 🙂

I have a great physical therapist who is encouraging and moves me at a rate that works for me.  She is more encouraging than my doctor, who always reminds himself that I had more severe restricted range of motion than most so that he can remember that I am doing well.   "You has less range of motion so that is why you are not bending as much at this point of recovery."  And here I thought I was doing great, not lagging behind 😉

I am driving now and so can get out and about more.  Of course I have no energy to do anything once I get there…how fun it is to drive to the grocery, sit in the parking lot for a bit and then return home……  But I am building up to bigger and better things.  You know, like meetings when school starts up again…..

My recovery is going well, but I am having difficulty with the pain medication.  I tried to change from one type to another, but I didn’t like how my body responded to the new stuff.  I thought, "Hey!  I don’t need pain meds!"  and stopped taking them.  Cold turkey.  I was in hell!  I felt like I had the flu–body heavy and aching, nausea, headache, skin hurt to the touch, and crying….I was in emotional hell as well.  For the first time, I was so sorry that I had this surgery.  I made mention of this on an online forum and someone asked why I wasn’t tapering off the meds.  Never thought of it (you know me……young and naive about drugs).  So I went back on the first drugs at a very low dosage and things improved…..but not gone.

No one tells you about withdrawals.  No one tells you how to safely taper off meds.  I was no longer in such hell, but I was sort of miserable all the time.  Like this low-level flu.  I finally figured I wasn’t tapering off correctly because I was having little withdrawals rather than the big ones.  I went online and after a few hours search, found a reference to a safe tapering off schedule (everywhere it says to taper off; no where says how).  It was in a response to an inquiry about something else; the writer casually said, "…as we all know (note to the world….apparently I am the only one who doesn’t), the best method to taper off pain medications is lowering your dosage by 20% every 3-7 days…"  So Doug and I did the math and now I am taking a good amount that I feel good but am on my way to being drug-free within the next two-three weeks 🙂

Kaity, my grandgirl, is really into tending to me.  She is very conscious about my owie and is tender.  She is afraid of hurting me when on my right side (I once moved her to the right side while we were reading together and she said, "Mamaw, don’t make me hurt your owie please.").  She will put her little hand on the scar and tell me it is hot and that I "willy" need an ice pack.  And then she tells Doug that she has TWO owies on her knees and needs an ice pack as well.  So we sit together with our legs out, ice packs doing their cooling 🙂  She helps me do my exercises, too.  She counts and I exercise.  I like her counting better than mine because she sometimes skips numbers to get to the end!  She races me between the tree and the fence when I walk outside.  I tell her we are playing tag with the tree and the fence.  She tells me I can’t catch her.  I tell her she is right.  She’s a great exercise partner because she is 3 and life is all about redundancy.  She never gets tired of walking/running between the tree and the fence!

That’s the newest update.  I’m taking baby steps to bending and walking and straightening.  Milestones: yesterday I could go all around the bike pedal cycle for the first time and I could walk downstairs like a big girl rather than the two foot step down (one foot on the step, the other foot….move to the next step with both feet)–have been doing well on the up for about a week.

peace~~