In my last post, I mistakenly reported that physical therapy wasn’t very painful.  I retract that statement.  Perhaps, if by retracting that statement, it will cease to be the torture that it was yesterday…

To briefly update, my quad is working nicely, and I can walk around without my brace, for the most part.  Now and then, I sort of “forget” how to walk, and my leg collapses forward.  I usually catch myself before anything too catastrophic happens.  It’s weird having to “learn” how to walk properly again.

I am however, a little bit behind in the range of motion department.  I have what is called a “stiff knee.”  What does that mean?  Well, basically, I think it means I’m a sissy and that my pain tolerance is not very high.  So the whole point of physical therapy at this point is to bend my knee.  Apparently, there is no significant scar tissue preventing the bending – yet – it’s mainly my threats of violence on anyone that takes it too far.  There are all sorts of tricks for knee bending, most of which result in sweating, face whitening, nose flaring, vomit swallowing, horrendous pain for me to enjoy.

Among the tricks: making me sit on the edge of a table with a weight strapped to my bad leg forcing it to bend with the gravity; making me lay on my stomach while progressively shoving pillows and other objects under my lower legs to bend the knee; making me sit in a chair while being held down so my ass doesn’t lift off the chair while shoving my leg underneath me; oh and my favorite, making me sit on a table with my back against a wall while forcing my knee towards my face.

Yesterday, in addition to the bending tricks, a new, fabulous tool was added to my rehab kit.  The tool is a harmless looking little pizza cutter type thing.  The point of the tool: to grind up the scar tissue in my knee.  That felt very, very nice…let me tell you…especially since the scar tissue is built up right under the incision on my inner knee.  Very nice.

I did however, get to pedal a bike yesterday.  I need about 110 degrees of knee flexion to be able to ride a bike and complete a full pedal stroke, and at the moment, I’m up to 82 degrees, and yes, I am counting every single degree.  So that means half circles are my method of choice.  Pedal forward, stop, pedal backward, very slowly.  Baby steps.

I’m also getting acupuncture – even though I’m not a fan of needles – and using some Chinese warming herbs to heat my knee and reduce inflammation (since I can’t take any NSAIDs as they prevent the healing of tendon to bone).

I’m attacking this thing on all fronts.

The best part of the whole rehab process though, is that the training facilities at the University of AZ are top-o-da-line.  I’ve been getting to use the hot whirlpool and underwater treadmill.  The underwater treadmill is awesome, and when I’m finished on that thing, I feel like I actually had a workout.  Plus, there are underwater cameras, so you can see how your gait looks.  It’s too bad that cycling is not a “real” sport at a the collegiate level, since all of the other “real” athletes on campus – well, the athletes whose sports are part of the NCAA – get to use these facilities at their leisure.  Maybe someday cycling will be elevated to the NCAA status…

Until next time, happy bending.

So, with a gimp leg, I could have been a mummy or a pirate or Evil Knievel for Halloween, but I went as Misty Mae Treanor.  Yes, the Olympic gold-winning beach volleyball player.  It was a perfect costume, since she is currently on crutches after rupturing her achilles on Dancing with the Stars.  All I had to do was put on a sweatband, sport some black sunglasses, wear a sportsbra, and carry around a volleyball.  I couldn’t bring myself to wear the appropriate beach volleyball playing bottoms, however, since I get chilled easily…or something like that.

The knee is coming along nicely.  I can almost bend it to 50 degrees.

Physical therapy isn’t as horribly painful as I thought it would be.  All I have to do is try to bend my knee, try to flex my quad muscle, and walk around like a robot without crutches.  I had heard horror stories of padded rooms which contain a machine call the range of motion machine in which you are tied down, attached to the machine which makes your knee bend, locked in the padded room, and left there until you achieve full range of motion.  Maybe that part comes later…

For now, all I have to deal with is the electrical stim machine which jolts my quad and makes it flex.  It actually kinda tickles.

I am convinced however, that my muscles have totally atrophied in a matter of less than two weeks.  The PT tells me I’ll get the muscle back, but it still freaks me out!

If things keep coming along at this pace, I hope to be back on the bike by week 4…week 5 at the latest.  Before that, however, I have to ditch the stupid leg brace, and in order to do that, I have to be able to lift my left leg off of the ground from a sitting position.  I have no freakin’ excuse not to be able to do this.  I’m a cyclist for crying out loud, all I have are quad muscles.  Anyways, it’s really frustrating not to be able to lift my leg, but it still hurts like hell since there is a fancy little screw in my kneecap.  I’ll get there though.  I’m shooting for next Tuesday (not this coming Tuesday, although that would be fabulous) which is three weeks after the surgery.

I hope everyone reading had a great Halloween.  Among my favorite costumes: Joe Dirt (Kyle’s costume), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Scuba Shah Nay Nay (friend of Scuba Steve),  Yoda, and Corn (the food – think yellow balloons).  Unfortunately, I didn’t charge the batteries in my camera, so you’ll just have to imagine.

Until next time, Adios.