Yesterday I went to physical therapy and had a follow-up with a new surgeon, as Dr. Tex got a new job in a different state. The recovery process continues to be a roller coaster.
I am almost eight months out from surgery and I doing all of my activities of daily living. Jason, my physical therapist for the day, asked what I wanted to work on: strength? stretching?
"Running," I said. "I want to run."
"Okay," he said, and he suggested a few warm ups first. This was a lie. They were not warm-ups. Jason is not a malicious liar--he is a nice liar. He didn't want to tell me that this was a test to see if I was ready to run.
"Let's do thirty 'running mans' on each leg," he said. Running mans are where you stand on one leg, lift your other leg, and tilt back and forth.
Done.
"Now hop on both feet thirty times," he said. Done.
"Hop on your left leg thirty times, then your right," he said. I was doing this.
"Thirty one legged bends, both legs," he said. I was starting to get tired, but I was doing it. I had been kind of slacking on my exercises these past few days, and I was surprised I could handle all of this! My calf got a little tired with the one legged jumps, but other than that I was fine.
"Now we need two more sets of each," he said. ugh.
But I did them! I think I was more surprised than Jason was. After that, Jason let me run on the anti-gravity treadmill. I squeeze into the shorts, zipped into the air bubble, and let the machine adjust so I would run carrying 70% of my regular body weight. I walked for two minutes, and ran for one, for five sets. When I got off of the anti-gravity machine, my legs felt all jiggly. It was cool.
I was pretty psyched from running, and was in a good mood when I got to meet the new surgeon. He shook my hand, shook my leg and told me my knee was solid and stable. Good news again.
"What sport do you want to get back to?" he asked.
"Skiing," I said.
"Did you have an allograft?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"This is only my opinion, but give it a year after your surgery to let it completely heal before you ski," he said."This is not something you can speed up. It takes time for all of the blood vessels and nerve endings to connect."
Oof. I wasn't planning on skiing this year necessarily, but now it is completely out.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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