ARE YOU SPASTIC?

Well, it has now been four weeks and four days since my knee replacement surgery.

I wanted to give a little update. The first two weeks were a horror!  The pain was intense and it lasted the entire day. To make matters worse my body just couldn’t take the Oxy, or Tramadol.

So I am taking various levels of Tylenol for pain relief. During which time I have my home scheduled physical therapy going on. They have me walking around the cul-de-sac doing three or four rounds. After those little jaunts I was manhandled, tossed and turned in order to try to make that knee bend. I returned to the doctor after two weeks and my bandage is removed.

Doctor says this looks great, I’ll let you judge for yourself. Picture attached.

What about showering you ask? Well, Lil had a plan. She wrapped my knee in packaging tape which worked perfectly. It repelled all water and allowed me to bend the knee.

My medication is now adjusted to Tylenol with codeine.

My physical therapy has  now moved from home site to a Cleveland Clinic satellite office.  My program is physical therapy twice per week. As a new patient, my first two therapists were very patient and complimentary with my progress through weeks three and four even though I slacked off on my homework assignments. Every day after therapy my knee hurt so much that all I wanted to do was to rest it instead of doing more work at home. Lazy, perhaps.

Last week I encountered my third therapist, I have been checking her out since my first day there. She seems to push all of her patients further and further till you can see their pained expressions. She puts me on a warm up cycle which is effective for those first six minutes.

She then has me work on tightening the muscles in and around my knee. I get to do my giant rubber ball exercise, bend the knee further and further. I move to another machine which has me push weights against my knee, painful but it feels good.

Finally I’m scheduled for toe and heel exercises and trying to do squats. As I’m trying to squat she wants me to move my hips and not be so stiff. She says move those hips like your doing salsa dancing (I don’t dance). She continues to straighten out my back and move my hips as I’m attempting these exercises. Somewhere in this process I see her reflection in the mirror and her face is telling me

what the fuck’s the matter with you, are you spastic?

I did want to answer her but after all it’s body language and not what she actually said.

I return to her this Thursday for more love and praises, I’m getting fraidy scared!