Saturday, July 28, 2012
It’s been nearly 8 months since my PKR. I can’t believe how the time has flown by! I am happy to report that I’ve been able to enjoy a much more active summer than I did last year. My awesome knee has allowed me to do a lot more cycling at much higher speeds along with a bit of very easy hiking. In general, it’s been a godsend and there are times that I forget that I have bionic parts. I have better flexion than I had prior to surgery and am able to stretch my quad muscle and touch my butt. Extension is still a tiny bit short of 0 degrees but it’s so slight that it hardly is worth measuring or mentioning. Once again I have to mention the best part of having the surgery has been the ability to walk long distances virtually pain free. Hooray! Walking is highly underrated with the exception of all that are on this board. The things I struggled with just 3 or 4 months ago…i.e. standing in place for periods of time, walking on uneven surfaces, stooping to pick something up aren’t a problem anymore. I’m happy with where I am today but I do struggle with the knee at times. I have days when I feel a mild discomfort/tenderness on the medial side of the knee, days when the knee feels stiff and bending it is just a hair shy of painful. The knee still buckles out of the blue every now and then and climbing/descending stairs still presents problems. I attribute most of these problems to the lack of muscle I’ve been able to build in spite of my continuing to work on the muscle on an almost daily basis. I honestly didn’t think it would be as much work as it has been to build the quad muscle!
I don’t want to turn this post into anything negative for I am extremely happy with how well I am doing 8 months into this. I do think if I hadn’t been so active prior to my knee being junk, I’d been totally happy with this old knee. But I miss things and I hope that once I’m able to build more muscle, I will be able to go back to doing some significant hiking/bouldering and be able to cycle many more miles than I currently am. I really, really hope the days of century rides aren’t behind me. I still need to ice after doing anything out of the ordinary. I’m not sure if this is to be expected or not and if anyone out there who happens to be reading this has had this or a TKR, I’d love to hear from you.
I know me and know that if it’s not to be, I will be o.k. with it. I also know that I will continue to work my butt off getting the leg back into the best shape I possibly can. It’s (mostly) all good. And every now and then I give it a little kiss and thank the knee for being so good to me.
Cheers to all!
Robin
