On Thursday we went in to meet with my surgeon and were ready for the s-word. It didn’t come!

At 7 weeks post injury - my appt previous to this one - my knee had the same complete lack of stability as it did right when I injured it. Sitting with my legs over the side of a bed, if you held my thigh steady and pushed on my lower leg even lightly to the outside it would swing with no resistance or end point. Neat party trick, not so cool for things like walking. 

At Thursday’s appointment however - 11 weeks post injury - I was completely in the dark about my leg. The truth is that I was way too chicken to check it myself before we went in as I’d done last time, and I really expected it not to have changed. Why would it change in weeks 7-11 when there had been no change in weeks 1-7? 

But! While there’s still a long way to go, the aforementioned test revealed a leg that was swinging only about half as far with a firm endpoint, and with some resistance the whole way. Resistance! In my knee! At least partial miracle healing has occurred!

Forms were submitted for the follow-up MRI that I requested to see what other damage I have done (because I’ve definitely damaged other things, so surgery may yet be in my future, just not required for immediate mobility), and I was given - get this - the all clear to start weight bearing and physio. Walking! 

I came home and took the first tentative steps relying heavily on my crutches. Very strange, still wobbly with my knee, but weight on foot nevertheless. 

I went to physio yesterday and after a thorough assessment was instructed to simply be as active as tolerable and to come in once a week for now as there’s little they can help me with just yet. The current goal is to get down to walking with a cane within about 3 weeks, so that’s the plan. 

Yesterday I took my clearance-to-be-active a little too literally, and spent the whole day limping around but walking in some sense to anywhere and everywhere I wanted to. We walked around Pier 1 and another store looking at furniture, hobbled to and from the Rogers store from the parking lot behind, went for breakfast then walked to the truck parked a block and a half away, hobbled through a park to a bench overlooking deep cove, and a few other places. I was really getting used to the playing learning-to-walk thing.

And, of course, by the time I was going to bed I was in all sorts of pain from seriously strained muscles and joints (what do you mean I can’t hobble around all day when I haven’t walked in literally 2 1/2 months?) and have spent the entire day today icing and elevating my very achy and swollen knee and ankle. OK, ok, moderation…. 

I’m hoping I’ll be more on my feet again tomorrow, but I will definitely slow down as I really over did it yesterday. But! It IS walking of some variety, so the whole thing is very exciting. I have a long long ways to go before I’m even off the crutches never mind walking normally or for any duration (and of course still need to regain a lot of stability so hoping for lots more healing), but I’ll get there. 

Tomorrow I will try to get down to the gym and try to start cycling, which is a big part of my rehab as soon as I can tolerate it. I can’t wait!

Happy mobility everyone!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.