Surgery Day +5: Physical Therapy

Tuesday, May 28

Last night was one of the worst since I’ve been home.  What can I say?  My knee and entire left leg just hurt.  And they hurt the most at 3 a.m.  I try everything I can think of to get into a comfortable position, but nothing works.  After hours awake with the pain, I end up crying myself to sleep.  I never imagined it would be this bad.

But today is my first big challenge of the recovery period:  my first outpatient physical therapy appointment.  Oddly, when I wake up after just a couple of hours of sleep (brought on by nothing more than utter exhaustion), the pain has abated some.  I’m working on getting myself psyched for the PT session.

The first - and toughest feat - is simply getting in the car.  Who knew that just sitting in the passenger side of a car required so much flexion?  I start engineering a method that I’ll perfect in the coming days:  lift myself up as much a possible with my arms (thank heavens for all those years of lifting weights in a gym) so that I can swing the bad leg in without too much pain.

I’m actually expecting for the PT to hurt - a lot.  Plus, I’m still a bit miffed about the choice of PTs available in-network through my insurance plan (in other words, very few choices).  I have a couple of therapists that I’ve used for various injuries and other physical complaints over the years, and we’ve developed friendships in addition to the patient-therapist relationship.  But Karen and Hilary and Jen are not in-network for me, and with a prescription for 6 weeks at 3 sessions a week at $75 bucks a pop, that’s a lot more cash out of pocket than I can stomach.  After all, once the hospital bill arrives I will already hit my max out of pocket for in-network services for the year (a not so tiny sum of $7,000).  And, a big plus for the Centura outpatient PT is that it’s 4 minutes drive time from home, rather than 45 minutes or more each way for the out of network options.    Since I’m relying on Ed to ferry me around, it only seems fair to make this as easy as possible for him, too.

But I instantly like the therapist, Lindsey.  She’s got the right amount of mix between cheerleading (you’re doing great!) to coaching (hold that stretch for 10, 9, 8…seconds!).  She asks if I’ve been doing the hospital PT exercises, and I answer yes, religiously!  She asks what else I’ve been doing.  I tell her:  elevate, ice, pain meds, and some walking.  That gets her attention.  

Lindsey:  How much are you walking?

Me (a bit full of myself):  mostly to the end of the block and back, but last night I went an extra block!

Lindsey’s face grows dark, and it looks like I’m in for it.  She gives me a short sermon on what my priorities need to be (range of motion, ice, elevation, pain control, rest), and walking is clearly not one of them.  In the background, Ed grins, since he’s been opposing my attempts to extend my walks further each time I go out.

So now the two of them are in cahoots.  Great.  Nurse Nudge at home (my name for Ed, who is my traffic cop as well as caregiver), and Lindsey, the Gestapo at PT.  In the coming days, whenever I try to do something Ed doesn’t agree with, he warns, “I’ll tell Lindsey!”  He loves it.

All in all, it’s a good visit.  My extension - the hardest thing for me, given the tight hamstrings I’ve developed in all those years of running - gets to 1 degree.  My flexion is up over 90 degrees, and that’s just dandy.  The docs don’t want me going much more than that for fear of tearing open the incision.

I work on perfecting my car-entry method, and am able to get in without much pain.  A few minutes later, we’re home, where I can get back to elevating, icing, resting, taking pain meds, and - thankfully - getting in a couple of nice short naps.  The next home PT session is hours away.