8 weeks later

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. 

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. 

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.  

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.

When I’m not icing, I’m firing up the Kneehab XP. On 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.