"How long will I have to wear a brace or use crutches after surgery?" I asked.
"You have to earn your way off the brace," he said. "You need to show that you are doing the work so you can walk." Earn your way off the brace? I was just asking for a ballpark estimate, but something got crossed in our communication. This whole thing is new to me. I am not hiring him for his bedside manner. I am hiring him so he will fix my leg and I can walk, ski, play tennis and dance again like a normal person. Jack reminds me Tex is a surgeon. His job is to poke around inside my knee and fix it, not to reassure me.
Nevertheless, I cried when I got home. I was hoping the surgeon would have said, "I have an opening on Tuesday, if that works for you..." I've heard it takes six to nine months to fully recover from ACL surgery, and I want that clock to start as soon as possible. Waiting another month just might kill me. The other surgeon in the practice has the same opinion about the straight leg. They believe in "pre-hab," getting all of your muscles working before the surgery to improve the outcome. Tex wants to operate on a straight leg, not one that is bent.
I've been straightening and flexing my leg when I was younger for ballet, tap, jazz, aerobics and drill team for years.
- High kicks: straight legs, both the standing leg and the kicking leg.
- Splits: straight legs.
- Yoga: Warrior 1, 2 and 3, tree pose, etc -- all have a straight leg in there someplace
I talked to Jason, my PT Assistant, about this. "Shouldn't my left leg match my right one in the way to bends?" I asked. "It might look stupid if my legs don't match."
He agreed. "Our goal is to get you to -8 on the left before the surgery." Straight means not just straight, but almost equal to my right leg. I am sure my surgeon Tex would still fix it with 0 extension, but word on the street is listen to your PT.
Last night, my son had a soccer party. When I am at social events, everyone wants to talk about my leg. Not that my leg is the most engaging topic on the planet (sorry, gentle readers), but they are curious and empathetic, and ask questions ("What happened? Does it hurt?" etc.) I usually find out lots of good information. My friend Kathy's mom is a physical therapist.
"A good physical therapist is mean," she said. "You should hate them. If they are any good, they will work you harder than you want to work. And do what they tell you to do. You will get better." I was kind of hoping my PT would be more like my hairdresser--a cheerleader/therapist/friend whose job it is to make me look good. I am learning PT is not like going to a trainer. I went to a trainer after Claire Adele was born. The trainer didn't try to get my non-functioning, flaccid quadricep to try to move. I went to the trainer able-bodied but flabby. My PT team's job is to get my leg to do things it doesn't want to do or stopped doing after the accident.
"Follow every word your physical therapist says," said Will's dad. "I had work done and I did everything they said and I am fine. They people who don't get better go to physical therapy once and then they can't figure out why they can't lift their arm above their shoulder."
"I skipped out on my physical therapy and now I limp," said Mark's dad. I was getting the picture: Physical therapists are gods. Follow them. A friend of mine who is a doctor said the same thing: do what they say.
This put me into an interesting position. My surgeon said to not wear the brace and use crutches. My PT team said to wear the brace and lose the crutches. Who should I listen to? Based on the general wisdom of the room, the PT trumps the surgeon in this case. Both my surgeon and the PT team want my leg straight, ASAP. Yet, my PT team understands that I have twenty-two steps up to my house and I need to make breakfast and dinner for my family. My surgeon does not, but in fairness that is not his job.
After I have been working my butt off biking and doing 270 leg lifts* a day while slowly limping around my house, good news came from an unexpected place. Our family carpools to soccer with another family. The boy, Asher, said to me at the party, "Lauren you are looking great! You are walking so much better than the last time I saw you. You don't have crutches anymore." He was truly sincere in his gushing, and I drank it up. Asher sprained his ankle in the fall, and was on crutches briefly. He knew the drill of recovery. "Before you couldn't walk at all before and now look at you!" What an adorable kid! It was nice to know my progress is visible to the human eye, not just measured by the PT's rulers.
* Maybe closer to 180.
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