8 weeks later

Posted: January 3, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Surgery | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Five and a half weeks. 37 days. A milestone — finally. My first real milestone after my knee replacement came on day 37 post-op. On that day, I woke up on my own instead of from pain.

In my last post about my knee replacement surgery, it was easy to imagine constant pain for 6 weeks post-surgery. While I’m happy to have noticed relief a few days shy of that, 37 days is a loooooooooong time to be in pain. And the pain isn’t totally gone, either. As I begin my eighth week with my new knee, I still have pain–especially during and after physical therapy–but it’s no longer my constant companion. IMG_5304

I no longer walk with a limp, thankfully. I can go up stairs with relative ease, but coming down stairs is a different story. My new knee still doesn’t want to bend the way it needs to. It still barks at me and my unrealistic expectations. Even though I had read extensively about recovery and thought I knew what to expect, I had no idea how hard this would be.

If you happen to have a story about a neighbor/parent/spouse/boss who had a knee replacement and “was up and about like normal within a few weeks,” do not tell me about it. Just don’t. I don’t want to know. Yeah, yeah: everyone heals differently, it’s major surgery, anytime they cut your bones it’s a hard recovery blah blah blah. I know that. In my intellectual brain I know that. But in my crazy brain, I have this stupid idea that eight weeks is more than enough time to heal. Crazy Brain and I would like to get back to normal, please.

These days, my life revolves around physical therapy, my ice cast, the Kneehab XP, and a compounded antiinflammatory cream. Three days a week I spend an hour and a half at PT; on the days that I don’t attend PT, I do a series of exercises at home twice a day. Pedaling a stationary bike and doing squats are the least heinous parts of my PT. The Graston treatment falls into the heinous category. Graston involves the therapist using one of these tools to press, scrape, and apply pressure to the injured area. While it can hurt enough to induce a cold sweat and a string of curse words, it breaks up scar tissue adhesions, softens the fascia, and promotes healing. foamtray3-shadows.jpg

After the Graston treatment comes acupuncture. Graston breaks up the bad stuff and then acupuncture helps escort that bad stuff away from my knee and out of my system. Here’s hoping that Graston and acupuncture continue to combine WonderTwin powers to heal this mess.  IMG_5670.jpg

Once I get home from PT, I strap on my ice cast and wait for the cold to overpower the pain. Sweet, sweet relief. This thing is pretty great: the cooler holds ice and water, which flow into the leg cuff, along with air for compression. It gets cold quick and stays cold long enough to wipe out the damage done progress made at PT. If only I could figure out how to store a glass of champagne in the cooler when it’s not strapped to me.IMG_5672.jpg

When I’m not icing, I’m firing up the Kneehab XP. IMG_5669.jpgOn the inside of this sleeve are electrodes that sit right on top of the affected area and deliver electrical stimulation to the quadriceps to force the muscles to contract. Those quad muscles have been underutilized because of the damage to my knee; by forcing them to engage, the Kneehab XP promotes strengthening and reminds those muscles to get back to work.

Here’s how the incision looks today. It too is healing, slowly slowly slowly. Much too slowly for me and Crazy Brain. IMG_5671.jpg

 

 

The battle of the K tape

Posted: June 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, tennis | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

In addition to battling cancer and a nosocomial infection, I’ve also been busy battling plantar fasciitis.

mayoclinic.com

The PF preceded the BC, and while not as nasty–and certainly not life-threatening in any way–it’s a major drag. My feet hurt all the time. All. The. Time.  Maintaining my busy-body active lifestyle is pretty tricky with feet that hurt All. The. Time. It also severely limits my footwear. Cute shoes are pretty much out, as is going barefoot. I haven’t resorted to orthopedic shoes, but I’m not out of the woods yet, either. I have custom orthotics that go in my tennis shoes (don’t be jealous), and if I’m not wearing my tennies, I’m in my very dear Cole Haan flip flops or my not-s0-cute but cushy crocs flip flops. Thank goodness I don’t work in an office that requires closed-toe, pinchy shoes. I’d have to quit or get fired. Probably option #2.

I’ve seen a foot doctor, I’ve tried herbal remedies, I’ve taken copious amounts of RX anti-inflammatories, I’ve iced and elevated and slept in a splint. I had high hopes that while recovering from The Big Dig and taking several months off from tennis and most of my daily activities beyond laying in bed bemoaning my pitiful state would provide some respite from the foot problems that plague me. Alas, it did not. In fact, having foot pain while lying in bed doing none of the active things I want to do gave me more about which to bemoan. 

My tennis buddy and dog-spoiler extraordinaire Christy had the answer to my problems. Dr Scott Kelly of the Airrosti Clinic. I need another doctor in my life about as much as Lindsey Lohan needs another bad-influence friend. The thought of adding yet another doctor my circle of docs did not appeal to me one little bit, but desperate times….

The Airrosti Clinic uses an intense treatment model that involves some serious hands-on time with the doc. And when I say hands-on, I mean he’s gonna put his hands on your tenderest injured spot and mangle the hell out of it. For real.

airrosti.com

See, fascia is connective tissue that covers most of our body. It covers the different muscles, blood vessels and nerves “much like plastic wrap holds the contents of a sandwich together,” as it was explained to me. Problem with fascia is it’s everywhere, so your chance of injuring it is great, and it has little or no blood supply, so your chance of healing said injury is not great.

That’s where the laying of hands comes in. Dr Kelly gets his long, strong, mean hands into the damaged fascia and starts kneading it like bread. Then stretching it like taffy. Then punching it like a speed bag. All the while laughing maniacally at the moans, cries, screams and curse words coming from the patient. (Ok, he doesn’t really laugh maniacally but he does seem to enjoy his work very much, and when I showed him the line of bruises on my calf after his first hands-on treatment he smiled with obvious pride and said that’s his signature, and if he could sign his name in bruises, he would. That’s one autograph I don’t really need but apparently am gonna get. Repeatedly.)

When I met him last week, he grabbed ahold of my foot and said he could diagnose me in 30 seconds. I said I didn’t realize this was like speed-dating. He rolled his eyes, then told me that he could cure my PF in 3 treatments. I asked if he could also name that tune in one note. Why oh why don’t any of these doctors get my humor??

As skeptical as I was, I have to say that after the mangling, kneading, stretching, punching, and cussing, I could tell a difference. It took a while for the shock and trauma to subside, but once it did, I could tell that we were getting somewhere. The day after my first treatment, I got out of bed and walked barefoot on the tile without pain — something I hadn’t done in at least a year.

There’s homework, of course, that involves standing on a golf ball and rolling the ball all over the bottom of my feet, paying special attention to and lingering on the really tender spots. There are also a couple of exercises involving a 36-inch by 6-inch foam roller.

And then there’s the K tape. 

Kinesio tape. In every color of the rainbow, according to the image on ktape.com. The website is pretty glowing about this product:

“It’s designed for Professional athletes, Olympians, and active people world-wide who take health & fitness seriously and who refuse to stop training, playing, or living life active and free. The design is minimalist, the results are magic.”

That’s me: I refuse to stop training playing, or living life active and free. Bring on the magic!

I’d had K tape before, when I was treating my PF myself, and again when I started seeing my lovely lymphedema specialist, Tammy. She’s a certified K tape master. She’s been using K tape on my post-mastectomy chest and now on my post-reconstruction belly. I’m a believer in the magic of K tape. As part of the scar-tissue-management on my 17-inch-long incision on my belly, Tammy puts a couple of strips of K tape and we wait for the magic happen.

So when Dr Kelly wanted to tape my feet after my first treatment and asked if I’d ever heard of it, I said as a matter of fact, I have some on my belly right now. We hadn’t been through the whole song & dance about the BC business; I was hoping to keep the BC beast out of the sports medicine arena. Well, the elephant was certainly in the room when I mentioned I had K tape on my belly. In for a penny, in for a pound, and I had to explain. 

Yes, those are bruises just above the shorter piece of tape. If you’re fluent in the language of torture, you can probably tell that that’s how Dr K signs his name.

Dr Kelly seems to be a bit competitive, and wanted to tape me up real nice so that Tammy, the other K tape master, would approve. She did. And then she took it a step further. I guess she’s a bit competitive, too.

Instead of just using a couple of strips on the scar tissue on my belly, Tammy used a new technique she’d just learned at a K tape workshop. Could this be Turf Wars part deux? 

I can’t wait to show this to Dr Kelly. The battle of the K tape is on!

I hope neither he nor Tammy sees this K tape image and gets any big ideas:

googleimages.com

I’m ok with the crazy blue racing stripes on my legs & feet, and with the Frankenstein pink on my belly and over my new belly button, but I’m drawing the line at a pink ribbon made from K tape. No thanks!