Three Weeks After Knee Replacement

(No Warning Today -- picture of wound is included... but I don't think its gross enough to warrant a warning!)  

Today is the third week anniversary of my new knee.  A lot has happened in the last week.  

I went to my surgeon for my follow up early this week and he is quite pleased with the progress. Nearly giddy I think :-)   He said doing surgery on younger people is a catch 22 -- you hate to do it to someone so young who may need a second one down the road but it was nice to see how fast someone young heals from it.   Good news was that at just 2 weeks and a day he gave me the clearance to swim.

At physical therapy I discovered that while I have enough bend to put my operated leg on a higher step, my quad muscle is not strong enough to lift my body up to it.  Not even close.  That is disappointing so I decided to make that a goal in my homework this week.   Since I could get in the pool, I used the buoyancy of the water to help.   I started with water walking, making sure to do the heel strike and push off the ball of my foot.   Once I had a little whirl pool going, I reversed and went against the flow of the water.  Then I held the side of the pool and stepped up.  Once I had that down, I did it without holding the side of the pool.  I fell a few times but since the water "caught" me it wasn't a bid deal.  Then I repeated the series.

This is surprisingly hard.  Who would guess that walking up a step would be that fatiguing to a muscle?   The good news is that its improved throughout the week.  The bad news is that its still hard and its still not very controlled.

I no longer use a cane or crutch, even on uneven ground.    I DO walk VERY slowly on uneven ground.  I went to the barn a couple of times this week and cleaned some stalls and one of the days took a few pads of hay out to the paddock.  Its embarrassing how slow I walk on uneven ground.  I still don't feel safe pushing the wheelbarrow across the uneven ground or leading the horses so I am still fairly useless at the barn.  Irritating because I want to be helpful and I am relying on my ever generous neighbor friend.

Okay... here is the last tidbit... don't tell anyone but I am driving ... a little.   I have driven to the barn twice and feel okay but don't think I'd feel comfortable driving over about 20 miles an hour so I think that is as far as I will go for now.  Luckily the barn just down the street from my house and on a back road so I can drive slow.

So that's where I am at week three.  Ahead of schedule but still not as quick as I would like.
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