Hello BoneSmart friends! I’m a little overdue leaving my 10 month update, but here goes! To help organize my thoughts, I’m going to break this down by types of activity:
Daily Living: Stairs continue to get easier. Going up has been totally fine for quite some time, but I still feel a bit of tightness going down and that’s not as fast or smooth as it could be. Getting up from seated is easy, even from one of those awful low toilets. Sitting down is fine except for the lowest seats, which I still find myself reaching back for. Squatting down is limited a bit, partly from limited ROM but also because of the cartilage damage in my other knee. It is far better than before surgery. I can get down on the floor and up again easily. I can kneel on all fours on a soft surface. Driving for a few hours is not a problem (it used to be for years before my PKR). I rarely have any swelling or heat in that knee. Only if I really overdo in the garden or similar activity, and even then it’s mild.
Farm Work: I am now doing all the barn chores I was doing before all this started. The only thing that bothers my knee at all is scooping the cow stall which involves shoveling heavy manure into a wheelbarrow and pushing it. Horse stalls are no problem. I can carry 50 lb feed sacks and walk with them from the truck to the barn. I am getting my large garden back into working order. It’s going very well preparing the soil, hauling compost, and raking and hoeing. Hand weeding and planting is still challenging. I’m not able to squat all the way down or kneel very much yet. I have a very thick yoga mat I use and just change positions frequently. I can crawl through corral fences and walk across 4 acres of uneven tall grass and ditches. Leading and handling the animals is totally fine and it’s so nice to be able to bend down and pick up their feet, etc with no pain and good stability.
Riding: My riding continues to improve, though I am nowhere near the level I was at before my injuries. At this point, the limiting factor is almost all my hip and hardly my knee at all. I am riding at walk, trot, and canter, posting the trot, and going up and down hills. Not back to training yet and may not go back. I can see myself just wanting to ride my own horse, at least for a while.
Hiking: I have been hiking about 5-6 miles on moderate trails (I have graduated from easy!). Uphills are feeling great. I am gaining strength all the time. Downhill is harder. I believe it is mainly a matter of building strength, overcoming some fear, and retraining my body how to do it. I walk most days and feel I could go 10 miles on flat ground. I need to continue to ramp up on hills and especially to improve the downhills. I have begun carrying a little more weight in a pack.
Exercises: I still ride the stationary bike religiously each evening for 20 minutes. I have one more click to go to be on the lowest setting. My other knee has begun to pop a bit so we’ll see if I get there. ROM has continued to improve in tiny increments. I very much hope and definitely expect to get more, but I could live with it where it is and be ok. I love my fantastic PT and go once a week. It is helping in so many ways, especially my riding. She is working on both my hip and my knee. Here are some examples of what she’s having me do: hip flexor stretches, standing external rotation, quad stretches, wall slide squats, short arc quad raises with toe turn out (hello vastus medialus!) alignment exercises, and balance work. She also does lots of manual therapy.
I think that’s quite enough from me for now! I really wanted to be thorough because so much has happened in the last month or two! Thanks for reading if you got this far. I am forever grateful for this community and the support, encouragement, wisdom, and solidarity here. Happy healing to all!
United States
I hope that might be helpful for you! Tight quads definitely inhibit your flexion. In my case, the swelling was the number one problem that held me back for the first few months (about 5 months!). Only after that eased up did I start making real progress. After that, I think it’s been mostly a matter of tight muscles, tendons, and ligaments needing to stretch and lengthen. I’m still working on that, and am slowly but surely seeing improvement week over week. I am very pleased with how things are going these days!
