Coffee and No Naps

Another exciting day in TKR recovery land....well, not really, but it was a nice enough day. Aside from the usual daily routine of getting up, having breakfast, taking a shower, doing exercises, I can add only one new event--I actually drank a cup of coffee and totally enjoyed it. Maybe I'll live after all!

For a variety of reasons, I never napped this morning, and by 11:30 I was ready to eat my lunch and take my Percocet tablets to get ready for my next-to-the-last physical therapy session. Despite the pain associated with the usual awful exercises (heel slides, backwards knee bends), the session went well and, as has been the case each time, the therapist praised my efforts and progress. I certainly hope he's been telling me the truth, because I start out-patient therapy next week, and I fear it will be much more demanding than the at-home therapy has been. The new step forward with today's therapy was that the therapist told me to start trying to walk short distances with no cane. He said in another week or so, I should be walking around the house unassisted. Out in the world, I will still use a cane for a couple of weeks beyond that, but mostly, he said, for the sake of balance and stability. So that's another step in the right direction! (Pun intended!)

After spending an hour with Stan and the granddaughters (who returned from swimming just before the therapist arrived), I retired to my office bedroom while Stan took the girls home. I had intended to take a nap, but there were several phone calls, so in the end, I never took a nap. Now that's a big difference--my first day without a real nap.

I leave you today with no particular advice or updates, but it was a day that continued my steady but perhaps unremarkable progress. I can hardly wait to see my surgeon on Thursday to hear his assessment of my progress. Tomorrow will be two weeks since my surgery, and I'm already doing several things I didn't think I'd be able to do at this point. The problem is, of course, that I have no frame of reference, but then again, that's why I'm writing this--so someone else undergoing TKR will have at least a vague idea of what to expect.