The last three days have seen me able to sit in the passenger seat of a car (no longer any excuse to lounge on the back seat!), go out and socialise a couple of times, manage to wash my hair again and, today, start shuffling around the house without my crutches! Well, not so much shuffle but very slow and deliberate baby steps, and with a limp because the 'swingy' bit of each step doesn't quite feel like what my knee wants to do yet! I find the kitchen is a good location because you are never far from a worksurface to hold on to if needed! It is a very weird sensation and requires concentration to make sure the muscles remember what they are supposed to be doing. Without the right co-ordination at the right time, the whole leg feels like it might buckle - really makes you appreciate how amazing muscles are most of the time!
Apart from the short bursts of activity or socialising in the evening, I am sat on my bum in the living room with my leg up (occasionally with ice), working on my lap top for most of the day. Surprisingly I haven't got cabin fever yet and I haven't been itching to get some exercise, which I thought I might do by now. I suppose a lot of that has to do with my (conscious and subconscious!) mental preparation - I'd thought about the decision to do this so much and done so much research that I fully understood what I was letting myself in for (or at least I think I do!) and knew that it was going to entail a period of downtime. I was very fortunate that the date of my operation coincided with the end of (a busy) summer and shortening of the days (fewer opportunities for outdoor fun!), as well as a new phase in my PhD work which will basically require me to sit and transcribe interviews for a couple of months. For the wintery evenings ahead I was full of intentions to chip away at a backlog of reading I should do, until some friends lent us two box sets of 'Homeland'. Something tells me that is going to be bad for productivity!
Sorry, back to the knee. It is feel generally better each day, easier to manoeuvre, less swollen and stitches not pulling so much, but on Sunday (day 7) I think I over did the physio a bit and have suffered since: I got a bit obsessive with trying to get the same extension as my other leg, so spent a while doing the exercises which press your knee into full extension, clench quad and I tried very hard to get my heel to lift off, too. Did this a few times through the day and it seemed to be going well. However, the next day I found quite severe pain on the inside and slightly below my knee cap doing the same exercise, and especially when trying to bring my knee out of extension and into a heel slide. So I'm not sure whether I over stretched something, irritated or inflamed something, pinched something or something has just got tired from having to compensate for my quads and hamstrings not quite behaving as they should! I have laid off those exercises since and carried on with everything else with no problems. I will have my first post-op check-up tomorrow so will be able to ask. Must try not to cry if I have to do the move and it hurts....
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