Knee Update : "No Pain, No Gain!" @ 14.75% Recovery

The saying "No Pain, No Gain" is true! I am at week 3 post-recovery, 14.75%. Surgical cuts are healing, bruises are gone, and swelling is down.

Let me tell ya, it has been a very slooow and painful 3 weeks. Slowly, but surely I am making progress, with each knee-workout session to bend that knee past the point of comfort and then some more, as much as the pain is tolerable.

The doc has a detailed protocol and outline of where my knee should be each week. I started off a little behind the curve at week 1, with a 60 degree knee bend. I had a target of 90 degrees by week 2, and did due diligent with extra pain sessions from the PT and from Ryan, the knee was able to flex an additional 30 degrees to hit 90 in 4 days time. Those were 4 insufferable days. End of week 2 was uplifting to see the progress and a little bit of leg strength coming back, enough that I felt comfortable (at home or work) to walk about without the robo-leg brace on.

However, the suffering must continue. Week 2, I continued the due diligence. PT prescribed 10 reps of leg lifts. I did 25 reps/3x a day. I did multiple sessions on my own to work on range of motion to increase the flexion. In addition, I do 1-2 hours of rumble rolling a day. Yes. This is a full time job. Week 2 was, like the prior week, difficult. My ROM did not budge from 90, even with all the additional rehab I was doing. I was stuck there. Not only did I not see progress, but even these simple exercises of bending the knee and leg lifts, by the end of the day, the knee was so sore and painful, that I could barely walk. Week 2 was tough to not see the same progress as week 1.

First day of Week 3, I hit a minor break through. Ryan continued to do nightly pain PT sessions with me and last Thursday, I finally broke through to 102 degrees flexion. This Monday I measured 112 degrees flexion. Getting past the 90 was key. Now sitting is a little bit more comfortable. Moving about is a little easier. The surgical cuts are healed and scar lines now remain. Bruising is almost gone and swelling is now only in the knee area. The focus has shifted from ROM now to getting the quad to fully activate. It is still sub-par. Quad muscle is currently below the curve, while ROM is now above the curve. In addition, PT has been working on breaking up scar tissue that has formed in the knee area. PAINFUL! There is this torture cupping device that uses suction with the intent to "lift" up the surface layer skin and to break up the scar tissue that keeps the skin from moving around the knee. PAINFUL! I feel sharp twinges as the various scar tissue is snapping underneath the skin.

I look forward to when I can finally have a full night's sleep without waking up with knee pain to change out the ice pack. I'm hoping that'll be the next break through... in the meantime, I'm going to keep chugging away at rehab with the motto "No pain, no gain".

Summer Weekend Get-Away

A couple months back, we did a quick road trip up north. A notable highlight for the kids was... the hotel room! They LOVED being in a hotel room. Somehow that hotel room triggered a 2nd/3rd wind of energy into the wee hours pass their bed time.



And we saw this on the drive back home! Neato.

Little Chefs

Yes. A shopping basket can also double up as a hat!

A rare opportunity for Liam to "eat" the foods he is allergic to!

Knee Update : 8.2% at 2 Weeks & A Day

It is getting better...

I am now at 2 weeks and a day of ACL post-op surgery... roughly 8.2% of full recovery. The past two weeks seemed to have taken forever.. and I'm really just looking forward to hitting the 1 month mark. It is suppose to be significantly better with each passing week. So far, it's true. Week 2 is definitely better than week 1. But it is still not out of the pain/uncomfortable zone yet. The knee has all sorts of aches and pains and stiffness and swelling and twinges. On one hand, I don't want to move it, but on the other hand, I have to move it often to break scar-tissue and regain my range of motion. Intense physical therapy started this week. And let me tell ya, it is NOT fun, nor therapeutic. I am re-training all the nerves, muscles, tendons on how to move again, breaking down scar-tissue with new scar-tissue forming and then repeat of the cycle until the internals of the leg stabilizes.

I was foam rolling out the muscles and doing ROM (range-of-motion) exercises as early as I could withstand the pain in week 1. But my first PT session clearly demonstrated why PT is required for this sort of thing. My ROM going into my first PT session was at 60 degree angle. The orthopaedic had laid out a very detailed protocol for the PT to follow, and from that, I was already behind the curve. PT said I needed to be at 90 degrees by the end of the week! That's a 30 degree delta I needed to achieve in 4 days! Prior to that.. I had a 4-5 degree change doing exercises on my own.) The first session was not pretty. The PT cranked down on my leg past pain tolerance threshold. End of the session, she had gotten me to 72 degrees bend (though I couldn't keep it at that degree AND my leg was so numb and sore from the session that I couldn't walk.)

Right away, Ryan started working with me and doing our own massage/PT sessions every evening. Ryan is not as nice as the PT. When I scream out in pain, it does not even phase him. All in all, my life is mainly consumed with rehab - icing and elevating the leg every hour, throwing in foam rolling/massage/stretching as often as I can (usually prior to icing), PT sessions 3x/week for this first month post-op, and then my own exercises every morning/night, along with Ryan's version of PT. Emilia has joined in on the fun and she works on my good leg.

Today was the 3rd PT session...and deadline day. My knee is achy and sore, and twinges of pain are currently radiating at the site of the patella. But.. I DID hit 90 degrees today. Never mind that I can't get it to 90 automatically or even keep it there for long. The week of pain sessions have paid off. I have hit my first recovery milestone by the due date. I have another 2 weeks to hit the next marker, 125 degree ROM plus regain full quad activity and contracted definition. (Right now my quad is like jelloooo).

So..recovery is coming along ssssslowwwly. Brusing and swelling are much better now, and the stitches are off. Check out the gnarly!

All in all... I'm at 8.2%. Only 92% left to go til I can be back to my old self...

E's First Day of School : Pre-K

It's that time of the year again, when kids start school. Where did the summer go? And seriously.. is she already in Pre-K?! Our little girl, ready and excited for her first day back to school.

No doubt.. first order of business is to head back to her favorite spot in the school playground.

Our Garden

A few months back, our neighbor gave us a tiny little pumpkin plant. Ryan put in it our yard, along with my 3rd almost-dead basil plant. Well... a few months later and viola! Pumpkin plant has turned into the size of our kiddies and my basil is no longer almost-dead! Ryan and the kiddies definitely have more of a green thumb than I do.

Here's E with the pumpkin plant and the basil to the right. Prior to this, the basil was short stumps of yellowish stems, no leaves.

That one tiny little pumpkin plant is going to be giving us 8-10 mini-pumpkins hopefully just in time for Halloween.

Yup. That's the extent of our garden. =)

Family Fiesta!

Ryan's family was in town a few weeks ago for some family fiesta time.

E's not amused.

The cousins...

Knee Update : ACL Surgery - Done. Recovery at 3.27%

ACL surgery went smoothly. All the other ligament injuries appear to have healed. No sign of bone fractures. No additional repair needed for meniscus. ACL reconstructed with patellar tendon, and extra-articular augment was done with hamstring tendon. Doc says my knee looks like a 12-year old knee with no sign of age degeneration, arthritis, or wear-and-tear. All good.

Recovery though has been a different story. Today is day 6 post-surgery. According to calculations (assuming a 6-month speedy recovery), I am only at 3.27% of being recovered. Sigh. The doc did say that unfortunately it will take making my knee worse (with surgery) before it will become better.

The first 36 hours post-surgery were... indescribable, excruciating pain. It radiated from every, single pain receptor of the innermost knee and throughout the calf and thigh. Even with max dose of oxocodone, the pain was relentlessly sharp, burning, and stabbing. There was no relief, and as painful as it was, if I tried in vain to move to find a more comfortable position, intense throbs of pain attacked leaving no nerve untouched in the wrath. If flexed any muscle.. again surging, intolerable pain. I ran a low fever at 101 and went from feeling hot to cold. All I could do was recall my hypno-bithing mantras to make feeble attempts at mindfully pleading with my leg to not move and let the pain engulf. Managing child birth was successful. Managing ACL reconstruction.. failed. It made child birth seem like a walk in the park.

Break-through relief came after I was able to get a few hours of drug-induced sleep at which point I knew the drugs were finally working. The pain was still present, but felt more manageable. Day 4, I was able to stop taking pain meds all together. I choose to get off meds early because I don't like the side-effects. However, it means I have to tolerate the lingering throbs of pain and frequent sharp twinges randomly in all areas. In hindsight, maybe I should have stayed on the pain meds longer... Day 4 also allowed us to remove surgical dressings and see the extent of the damage. Yikes! It is definitely one unhappy knee right now. Swelling is still very much present in the entirety of the leg and lots of bruising.

It is now Day 6 post-op. I started rehab on Day 3 by spending 2-3 hours a day using a Continuous Passive Motion (CPM) machine which automatically bends and extends my leg. I also have a list of exercises to do with the first initiative to reactivate my muscles and work on range of motion (ROM). The quads, hamstring, calf muscles have pretty much shut down due to the trama from the surgery. So until they start taking orders from higher up (aka the brain) versus the nervous system over-ride, I am pretty much still very limited. Standing, walking, even sitting upright can only be done in short spurts. Lying down with the leg elevated, while uncomfortable, is still, at this point, the best I can do. I'm fully understanding now why they say recovery typically takes 6-12 months... it's definitely been tougher than I imagined.

Beach Day!

Backtracking..

Sometime this summer... the kiddies made it out to the beach! Yeh! Unfortunately our track record for beach outings so far is once a summer.