3 Weeks!

It's been 3 weeks now since my surgery. I feel like I'm ready to walk on it, but am still on restrictions for "toe touch" only. I've had a few slips where I've had to put my foot down pretty hard, but other than that the most pressure I've put would be about as much as you want to put on the chest of your Lab. I don't have any dogs anymore, but I think you get the picture of the amount of pressure I'm talking about. :)

PT was ok today, Drew only mentioned the non-weight bearing once and at least this time he wasn't going against doctor's orders by wanting me to walk on it. He said something like, "Now we just need to get you weight bearing." I agree that this has got to be an awful set back to my recovery; but it is my recovery, not his and I want to do it right.

I talked with a young guy at PT today that was easily cycling on the bike. He said he had acl surgery just two weeks ago! TWO WEEKS? And he looked liked it had been maybe 6 weeks. Ok, so he didn't have the trio of the acl, meniscus, and fracture and he was probably 20 years younger. Anyway, I was impressed with his moves!

I hardly did anything today at PT; I wonder what was up with that. I did the sit and step for 10 minutes, slid my foot back toward my butt while sitting up, did the leg extensions with the 8" blue roll under it (which didn't hurt this time...yeah), the usual leg raises in 3 directions, and some body planking with my heels on a Swiss ball. The Swiss ball move was the most painful. It didn't hurt so much while I was doing it rather when I released; it was pretty excruciating. Drew looked over at one point over the leg of another patient he was working on and asked me what that face was for. LOL, I was probably grunting too. :)

So as you can see the bruising is nearly gone. I'm still pretty tender below the knee on the outside of my lower leg. I still don't know why it's so sore and why there was a bruise there. My knee definitely looks better as far as swelling goes; it's mostly concentrated above the knee and on the outer side. You can sort of see the lack of muscle in the pics. Yeah, that slope above my knee is where my quad used to be. And lastly, I have to point out the protruding bumps where the incisions were made. They are sore to rub, but not so sore to touch anymore; although hitting them on accident really smarts!

So I'll be toughing it out for another couple weeks on the crutches until I see Dr. Anderson again. I'd rather wait just a few more days and have his blessing before ditching the sticks. They've all been a little wishy washy about how long I should be non-weight bearing. I'm thinking "better safe than sorry".