One Month Update on Knee Surgery

Today is my one-month knee anniversary (not to outshine my kid’s birthday, but the two are not unrelated – he was a big baby and wanted to be carried…a lot, which may or may not have contributed to this whole knee surgery business.) 😊

The surgery was, as everyone told me (and I didn’t quite believe) a beast. I have new respect for anyone who goes through this. It’s not the pain that has been the biggest hurdle for me – in fact, I was off all the opioid stuff in the early days, post-surgery. Rather, it has been the extraordinary impact on daily life.

I am quite grateful that I have a job that allows me to work from my home office, that my husband’s and son’s jobs offer enough flexibility to allow them to be with me for most of the past three weeks, and when they weren’t, good friends, have stepped in with phone calls, flowers, visits, and chats. Four weeks with one’s own company alone will send one to the loony bin faster than Donald Trump can get on a plane to Florida.

If you are following along because you have had or are planning to have knee surgery, you already know that flexion and extension are the two almighty hallmarks of progress. In those areas, I have excelled and reached all the goals set out for post-knee surgery patients. Yay for me.

But, for a variety of reasons, none easily explained, my quad muscle has decided to hibernate over the winter, meaning, I can’t lift my leg from a sitting or lying position. Completely fine standing up, but it does impact gait, so while I graduated to the cane a few weeks ago, I remain a hobbling, slower-than-a-snail, mess. My therapists swear it will happen and admonish me to just stick with the program. It is not an uncommon thing – but, it is panic-inducing to me.

I have found it amusing to note, as I am crossing a street (not that I have been anywhere by myself, mind you – my handlers are always at my side…living the Kardashian life, I tell you.) Anyway, drivers initially are so kind if they see me standing and waiting to cross (a lady with a cane makes people nice, it would seem). But, if they catch me hobbling up to the crosswalk in the moments before, they quickly lay on the gas to get by lest they wait an interminable 10 minutes as I cross in front of them.

Sleeping remains a challenge.

Physical therapy has been way more difficult than I had imagined, and I find I am less motivated to do the exercises on my own to the extent they do them in the gym (but I DO them, just not quite at the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar level they might like.) To that end, I am looking to hire an at-home trainer who can help get this train moving more quickly. That said, I look forward to seeing my therapist twice a week – he’s a good guy and both he and his assistant push me gently to hit those goals.

File this under, “never say never”. These are things I never thought I would appreciate (or, in some cases, do):

1. Putting pants on from a standing position. I long for the day. If someone makes a video of themselves putting their pants on while standing up, I will watch it on repeat all-the-damn-day long, let me tell you.
2. Having a male nurse help me to the bathroom. That modesty ship sailed about 30 minutes post-surgery.
3. Having my tailbone electrocuted by my husband.
4. Oh, you want an explanation for #3, do you? It involves newly-presenting sciatica as a result of overworking my leg, a Tens Unit, and well, the rest you can figure out.
5. Having my adult son offer to help me to the bathroom. I drew the line there – if there was any motivation to get myself up and around, it was that.
6. Missing the walker. I made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t get to go out of the house until I was off the walker, so I pushed to get off it, but I miss her. Even though the chick scratched my hard-wood floors, she served a very good purpose.
7. Threatening to hurt someone with my wooden cane. One word: Costco.
8. On the topic of Costco, if you have knee surgery and you think you are a bad-ass, save that bad-assery for something other than Costco. You will fail at this outing and end up on the benches with a lot of $1-a-slice eating-people while you wait for your able-bodied family member to pick out the exact WRONG kind of cheese.
9. Ordering groceries from Whole Foods online. The WF driver visited so often, he and I are now Twitter-buddies.
10. Talking to myself. Rather, talking to my knee. “Oh please, you never gave birth, so stop your whining.”

I am positive my husband and son could write their own top-ten list.

As my husband remarked the other day, “Oh, so this is what the sickness and health thingy was all about…,” as he pulled the umpteenth bag of ice from the freezer for my knee.

Also, he has been cured of ever wanting to “get in the kitchen and mix it up” again. He loves bowls – you know, those ubiquitous meals that contain rice, greens, roasted veggies (in our house), toppings, and crunchy things? Two weeks ago, when he suggested making them, I walked him through the two-hour prep time of chopping, roasting, mixing, and sauce-making so he could make them for both of us.

He is unlikely to request another house-made bowl ever again.

There are some upsides to this knee business.