Sunday, May 11, 2014

Milestones

This week has been all about milestones. On Monday, the brace came off. On Wednesday, I lost one of my crutches and (sort of) relearned how to ride a bike. On Thursday, I left the house by myself for the first time since surgery. What a week!

After my second post-op visit last Monday, my surgeon thought I'd be on crutches at least another month. So, it was definitely a surprise when my physical therapist said I could ditch one of the crutches and probably be off them completely by this week. While I appreciate my doctor being conservative, I must say I favor my PT's views at this point! He also brought out the upright bike which at first was very exciting, and then quickly became depressing. Both my dislocation and first surgery were hard, but didn't involve any new ligaments, so relearning bending was not much of a challenge. I was back on the bike and actually pedaling normally about 6-8 weeks out. However, this wasn't the case with MPFL. With a new ligament comes an added set of scar tissue and extra pain, so I can barely make it around backwards on the bike sitting far too high up. I'm not sure which is harder- actually rotating my leg around or keeping my feet on the pedals. I try to increase the # of rotations every time I bike, so doing 35 today felt great!

I think the hardest part of this rehab is trying to compare it to either my dislocation or one of two surgeries, which is not only impossible but very depressing. I have to remember that all the milestones I hit in previous rehabs may not be possible now, but that does not make this rehab a failure. It is simply a sign of the severity of the surgery I had, almost 6 weeks ago now!

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