August 27, 2008 – 8:02 pm
It’s been seven weeks since my knee surgery. I can now officially put my full weight on my right leg. Unofficially, I’ve already been walking around without crutches for most of the past week. When I had my six-week checkup with the surgeon, I asked when I could drive a car on my own instead of having to get my family members to drive me to appointments. He said “whenever you feel like you can,” so I did.
The important thing about the six-week checkup last week was that it marked the point that my meniscus repairs are healed enough for me to start bending my knee past 90 degrees. [...]
I think I’m in the “it gets worse before it gets better” phase of recovery from my knee surgery. Maybe I just overdid things yesterday (visited our chiropractor and went out to a restaurant for dinner). Today I had a headache all day and my stomach has felt just a little off — not naseous, but not hungry. Of course, part of my trouble might be lack of sleep. I can’t move around like normal, and anytime I need to move my leg in the slightest, I wake up. It’s taken its toll on me, and I wound up conking out for a good portion of the day.
But, I still try to do the exercises that the physical therapist showed me. [...]
About 16 or 17 years ago, I injured my knee in a job-related incident. Being young and stupid, and not really understanding insurance and workers compensation very well, I never got around to doing anything about it, beyond using crutches for a while until I could walk without them again. My doctor at the time recommended that I get it scoped for a better look at what the damage was, but like I said, I was young and stupid, and so I put it off.
As a result, over the years my knee has mostly been okay, but occassionally it would “lock up”, requiring me to do odd manipulations of my knee joint to “unlock” it. [...]
