Week 7

Hey,

Small Progress

When I started writing this pre surgery, I said that I'd be honest and truthful about my own individual road to recovery and that I would include both the highpoints and the lowpoints. Overall this hasn't been a very positive week in terms of recovery and it has been difficult stay positive. The first half of the week was fine and I felt like I had been making some small progress with work in the pool and with the exercises my physio had given me to complete for the week.

Peeking out the windows

I'm trying to put any class off in work to doing some rehab exercises mid classes and had been feeling much better about the stairs in work also (I even got colleagues to observe and comment on my fabulousness). I had been feeling quite confident with the improvements made in my walking and felt as though the limp was gone totally. The weather was awful towards the end of the week and I slightly slipped walking out of school which was a little sore on my knee and hamstring. Later in the day then a little terrier jumped up on my knee when I wasn't looking and that caused a little bit of pain and stiffness. It's a little frustrating how aware you are of your knee and despite efforts to mind it, there's some things you can't avoid. I spent a lot of time icing it and it didn't feel too bad after. People mentioned my leg looked stiff when walking though :(.

Multi-Tasking 

Physio didn't go well either, not due to lack of effort. When I met the surgeon four weeks ago he mentioned that if my knee was still stiff in four weeks to contact him. We measured the flexion and extension on my knee and unfortunately the progress has been exceptionally slow. My extension is still 5 degrees off straight and my flexion is getting to 103 degrees. Given the amount of rehab I have been doing it's really frustrating and disappointing. My physio has recommended to contact the surgeon and to mention this. It could very easily just be the way my body is reacting to the new graft but there's slow and then there's this. To be fair it wasn't all exceptionally gloomy, we worked on new exercises using the pilates reformer which was verrrryyyyyy tough (sweating buckets) and a few new balance exercises to keep me busy for the week.

Again, it's bleak and you'd be disappointed and low hearing but also acknowledging how slow this process actually is, but it's brilliant to hear from other people in similar positions and to compare stories. I've been talking to a person who had their operation a week after me and in a very similar situation was went back to Santry due to the stiffness! It would give you a boost when you're finding it tough! Unfortunately the boost sometimes doesn't last long! (Especially when people are telling me how stiff my leg is and I think I walking well).

This weeks comparison

New exercises for this week :)
1. Step downs - Side
2. Step downs - Front
3. Bridge with legs on bench (Hard)
4. Single leg lunge using kettlebell

Achievements of the week:
1. Could hold my leg (Some form of quad stretch).
2. Upper body work is improving. 
3. Flying up and down the stairs in work.

Naomi