Bracing for Tomorrow

The only real difference between yesterday and today is that the weather was much nicer which meant that Stan and I weren't cooped up in the house all day.  We did, in fact, spend a long, long time sitting in the sun on the back porch which, despite the fact that it wasn't all that exciting, was very pleasant.  All that Vitamin D, you know!  Aside from that, however, we had a mostly interior kind of day. 

So how's my knee doing, you may ask.  Well, after a couple of days of still being quite sore, it was much better today....just in time to get pummeled again tomorrow at PT.  I tried to do as many knee bends and stretches as possible today plus I did step stretches every time I went up the stairs.  I hope that will be sufficient to get my ROM a little further along.  If  you recall, I finished last Thursday with 115 which, to be honest, seems quite good enough to me; however, since the therapist has set 120 as the goal, I just want to get there and be done with it.  I actually like my therapist a lot.  She's been great, and I love that she still starts every session with a long thorough massage.  Sometimes she does deep tissue massage which isn't at all fun, but mostly it's just a good massage that really loosens up my muscles and gets me ready for what's ahead.  No, it's not that I don't like her, and it's not that the exercises themselves are painful, it's the pushing down on the knee that she's doing now.  That hurts--a lot--and I think that's what makes my recovery from PT take a least one day (or more!). So let's hope I increase my ROM tomorrow to at least 117 and then maybe by Thursday to 118 or 119 and then finish it all off next Monday at 120.  Hoping, fingers crossed, and a little more stretching tonight going up the stairs!

As I've been doing in recent posts, I'll mention another item that has been almost essential in this recovery journey.  My 2011 therapist didn't do massages, and really didn't even look much at my knee but with this therapist, if I hadn't had a couple of pairs of extremely loose pants that can be easily pulled up to mid-thigh, I'm not sure what the procedures would have been like.  Fortunately, however, I'd bought a couple of culottes or yoga pants or palazzo pants or whatever you want to call them which I've worn to every PT appointment and which have greatly facilitated the ability of my therapist to do the leg massages.

Even though your therapist might not do as much massage as mine, I guarantee that the first few PT sessions your therapist will need to look at your incision and these culottes make it much easier.  They're on Amazon and they are nice enough you'll want to wear them in the future.  

That's it for the day.  Now just wish me luck at PT tomorrow!