PCL recovery

Hopefully when this shapes up into something, it will help other people going through a similar surgery... not much out there on PCL's, and I think there should be.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

All alone in therapy

We got hit with a little more snow last night into this morning. It really wasn't that bad, and the streets were cleaned much faster than it was after the blizzard. I went into the hospital this morning for my rotation, and then back home. I knew today I was going ot be in the hospital later, so I scheduled my PT for later in the day. I got out earlier than I expected, so I called and asked if I could come in a few hours earlier. I have never seen the therapist that excited.

I walked into the office, and it was filled with the staff, but absolutely no patients. One hand therapy patient I think, and that was it. Apparently, the average age of the clientele happens to be in their 80s, and most of them just go to PT cause they don't know what else to do. I work mainly with "Boss Man", but there is another therapist there as well that I have seen a couple times when he was unavailable. Lets call her "Nice Lady". "Boss Man" had a student with him, and "Nice Lady" was bored out of her mind, so she kept me company while I went around doing my exercises. I don't think I ever laughed so hard in my life. I have no idea how many sets of 10 I did because I just couldn't keep count. She kept going on and on about how she wants an invite to my wedding next year. Only thing is i'm not engaged yet. Hmm... maybe soon.

So today I worked with "Nice Lady", and while she was stretching me, she let me in on a little secret. Apparently, "Boss Man" loves it when I come in and he grabbed me as soon as I called to make my initial evaluation appointment because I'm young and have an orthopedic injury, and I'll actually get better, unlike a lot of the elderly patients that are really there because the docs don't know what else to do with them. She said that he "salivates" when I'm coming in because I have a real injury and I don't complain about the pain involved or having to do too much. I always knew I was their favorite patient :)

The other advantage of being the only patient and being stretched by "Nice Lady" instead of "Boss Man"? We were able to put what we wanted on TV. Which meant we could turn off ESPN and put on "Say Yes to the Dress". "Boss Man" was teaching his student something, and there was only 1 male PT aide there, so he was quickly outnumbered by the rest of us that wanted to watch "Say Yes to the Dress". Much easier to have my knee bent when I can watch people choosing pretty dresses, or laugh at the terrible dresses they chose.

Anyway, rehab is coming along pretty quickly now, which I'm really happy about. I had an interview on Tuesday, and I made it  the whole day walking without the crutches. And interviews are long days, so I was really glad that I was able to make it the whole day without any pain. And when I came home from the interview, I had some great news that made any pain go away. I just can't say what it is yet! But I am at 130 degrees of flexion actively, and 135ish passively. I'm using heavier weights on the leg raises, I worked up to 5 pounds at my last session. Today, I started doing step ups on taller stairs, and I started doing leg extensions on the machine set at 10 pounds, using both legs. The bike is no problem for me anymore. I started the treadmill as well, but only at 1 mile per hour. The sad thing is, the treadmill tells you how many calories you burn, and in the 7 minutes I went on the treadmill, I burned 9 calories. That's how slow I was going, but it was fun.  Or maybe because I was on the treadmill talking about chocolate melting cake....

It's pretty crazy that when I first started PT, I thought I was going to be doing this boring stuff forever. The bike used to be torture for me, and I would have to rock back and forth before I could get my leg all the way around. Now, I can just hop on and go, and I can actually turn the bike on by pedaling, and keep it on, which is new for me too. I'm getting able to do more and more things, and it seems like the rehab is just going on at lightening speed now. Or maybe that's just because for so long, I couldn't do much off the table, and now I have much more freedom.

I leave for a cruise next week, and I promised I would do my best to go to the gym and do some exercises on the ship. I have to use the bike, walk at grandma speed on the treadmill, do leg extensions if the machine has a low enough weight (no more than 10 pounds of weight right now), as well as a lot of my floor exercises. This way, I can try to avoid losing any flexion. I might still lose a little bit because I'm not going to have someone pushing my leg to the absolute breaking point, but hopefully it will only be a couple degrees that I would be able to get back really fast.

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