Post Surgery Week 6 - Losing Faith

Wednesday, July 3

Today marks the last day of week 6 after my knee surgery.  It’s the eve of a national holiday, and it feels like it should be a day of celebration.

Instead, it’s a day of doubt and disappointment;  discontent and (sadly) distrust.  

In Monday’s PT appointment, I got two new exercises to do, both very simple.  In case you’ve lost track, that meant I had a grand total of four exercises to do each day.  The new activities - basically glute strengthening exercises - were to be done just once a day.  My other existing exercises were the simple flexion and extension activities that I got in the hospital, just hours after I got out of surgery.

Everything else I had built up earlier:  small amount of walking, a few minutes a day on a stationary bike, and a handful of other strengthening and stretching exercises - all gone, forbidden by physical therapy, so that my soft tissues could heal.

Adding the two new exercises sent my knee into pain spasms.  Again.  Monday night I couldn’t get the stabbing pain in my knee to quit.  Ice, drugs, CBD oil, self massage.  Nothing worked.  Somehow I still fell asleep but at 3 a.m. I was wide awake.   Walking, which has become my go-to solution for the pain that wakes me up in the wee hours of the morning, didn’t work.  The adductor muscle in my leg was cramping like crazy, and nothing I could do soothed it.  I finally took some more pain meds - including doubling my muscle relaxant - and put on a fresh ice pack, and laid in bed praying for sleep.  I think it came sometime around 5 a.m., but the muscle relaxant makes me groggy, so yesterday was a fog of a day.  The only good thing was that by the time I got up and migrated to the couch and the ice machine there, the stabbing pain had subsided, at least enough for me to get through the day and - mostly - through the next night.

Today’s PT appointment, then, was, well, what?  How to describe my increasing frustration that is leading me to wonder what the hell is going on?  The exercise that Lindsey thought provoked the adductor muscle to spasm:  gone.  Some new tape on my knee;  it may or may not help.  It feels like a Hail Mary.  My suggestion that maybe I could at least use my crutches to walk around the block without putting weight on my surgical leg?  Dismissed with “but that would stress your good leg”.

My last PT appointment is scheduled for Friday.  When I asked about continuing beyond then, Lindsey said, sure, maybe come in once a week for a few more weeks.  But don’t walk.  Don’t do more exercises.  No stationary bike.  It feels like my life is, again, completely on hold, and there’s no outlook for when I’ll ever get back to any level of activity again.

So.  Bah Humbug.  At what point does one seek out other care?  Where’s the dividing line between “you’re just healing slower than expected” (although my range of motion is beyond what they target, so we know that’s not the issue) and “something is seriously screwed up”?  When do I actually get to start living again?