Home PT

This is my sister's car, we woke to similar scene on my street.

Living in NY, we got slammed by a blizzard on Sunday that left 2 feet of snow in my neck of the woods. Unfortunately, due to an idiotic mayor who cut back on the sanitation department workers, saying that we don't need that many workers because we have the trucks, many streets are left unplowed. And because the plows and salt trucks were not deployed until after the snow had stopped falling, the plows got stuck. I don't know about this NYC technology, but every truck I have seen needs a driver, what good is having the plow if you have no one to operate it? This is easily the worst response to a snowstorm that I have ever seen. It's almost noon on Tuesday, and my neighborhood has still not heard the rumbling of snow plows or salt trucks. Buses still aren't running, and the trains that are in my neighborhood are still not operational. And I am not the only one complaining. Unless you live in midtown Manhattan, you are trapped, because our mayor has decided that your street is not important enough to get plowed. Ambulances are getting trapped, fire trucks can't make it to their calls. And yet where are the plows? Stuck in the snow because they didn't leave until we had 2 feet of snow instead of 2 inches of snow.

So all this means that I am essentially under house arrest because of the crutches. But that's ok because my physical therapy office is also closed. They're on a main road, which theoretically should have gotten plowed early on, but I guess if everyone else is snowed in, what good is that? I also haven't been able to get to my rotation yesterday or today, but rumor has it that the roads going to the hospital aren't plowed either. None of the other students on my rotation made it in either. And with no trains, it's almost impossible to get there. With no PT, and no way to get there even if they were open, I've been doing much more PT at home. I suppose that I should always do home PT, but I cranked it up a notch the last few days.

So what have I been doing? A lot of leg raises, quad sets, leg extensions. I've also been doing passive knee bends by putting a belt around my foot and pulling it. I wish I had a stationary bike so I could do that, but oh well. I've also been walking at home without the crutches (don't tell my PT, I think he would kill me!) and the knee feels great. I don't know if it's because of the surgery or the brace, but before the surgery, I would feel pain with every step. Now, it's like nothing to walk from one end of the apartment to the other. According to my rehab protocol, it's still early to be weight bearing, but on other rehab protocols I found, you can start weight bearing from 2 weeks, so hopefully I won't be doing any terrible damage. It's also not very long distances, and when I go outside, I take both crutches. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and is staying nice and warm.