TKR Moving forward.

[almostready?]

Yay!!

 

[mendogal]

You're doing great!!!!

 

[sistersinhim]

What a super post!

 

[Cycle-Path]

I'm bored. Figured I'd pop in and share a "milestone" for today. I walked an easy mile at the park non-stop in 22:30. It felt great to get out and just walk. It wasn't painful at all and I focused a lot on gait. My calf weakness seems to be doing okay as long as I don't really push off with my foot, but I do notice it more when walking up slopes when my foot has a mix of simultaneous heel and foot strike. I'll keep working it.

I attached a chart of my last four weeks of walking/steps. This is weeks six to ten for me at this point. It shows a steady increase and I'm slightly over 5,000 steps a day now. Many folks probably get these numbers earlier than me, but according to my PT I'm a little behind since my quad didn't work for two weeks.

Also attached is today's walk chart. Hard to believe my heart rate got to 134bpm. Must have been the hill...

 

[EalingGran]

walked an easy mile at the park non-stop in 22:30. It felt great to get out and just walk. It wasn't painful at all and I focused a lot on gait

That's great.
I found walking the best rehab for me. I built up back to 10,000 steps per day by about 3 months but I would stop for coffee breaks!

 

[Cycle-Path]

@EalingGran
That's super! Yesterday ended with over 6k steps and my highest step count post-op. Feeling fine this morning ;-)

 

[EalingGran]

I was lucky because I could walk along a bus route lined with coffee shops.
That way I could break my walks and also if I did overdo it I could get the bus back home.

 

[mendogal]

My rehab go-tos were walking and yard work!

I don't use step counters but tracked my outdoor walking two ways:
-Google maps to figure out distances from home, especially doing straight line walking on the level to improve distance
- My phone timer especially on hills or in parks where distance is hard to figure and I could set my desired turnaround time.

 

[Cycle-Path]

I have a Garmin watch since I normally take long walks, run, bike, and swim. It's just doing it's thing. Lol. I used them for many years.

 

[Cycle-Path]

It's 5:15 p.m. here and I walked a 22:11 mile earlier. Then did some light work at the gym followed by a stop at the grocery. Got home and cooked up some pesto stuffed spaghetti squash and garlic bread for the wife and I.

Right now I'm elevating and icing. My step count is at 5,500 and the rest of today will be about resting & relaxing.

Happy Friday everyone!

 

[Layla]

What....no dessert?!!
Dinners sounds delish and it seems you had a productive day.
Rest easy and sleep well. Thanks for the update, Cycle-Path!
@Cycle-Path

 

[EalingGran]

Sounds like you are doing really well.
I could walk well at your stage but couldn't have stood in the kitchen to cook without my leg really aching. Well done for being back cooking.

 

[Cycle-Path]

Dear Bonesmart diary,

I'm coming up on the 11 week point in a few more days. This morning I'm reflecting on how this has been a very emotional experience for me. It's been humbling to face this procedure wherein the outcome is not realistically within my control.

I've got some more thinking to do regarding that because at this point it's an incomplete psychological/physical experience: pain relief - check, functional improvement - check, orthopedically satisfactory - check. However, has my quality of life improved? I don't know yet. Can I return to my previous profession? Unknown at this point. Will I be able to be involved in my favorite hobbies? Also unknown. My silly little brain is pondering that there are still some significant unknowns from this procedure regarding longterm social and financial securities. Some mornings I wonder why I am wired this way.... it's surely frustrating. Lol.

Now that I've wasted some time logging my inner thoughts I'd like to say that the last week has been an excellent week for me. I badly needed this progress emotionally.

My last post was Friday, but I continued what I had been up to all week:
- Saturday I walked a cross country a mile (22:11) here around the farm, no gym, and had a total of 6,677 steps.
- Sunday I did a 1.25 mile (27:50) farm walk, no gym, and totalled 6,261 steps.
- Monday I took a recovery day and skipped both the walk and gym, but I managed to cover 5,875 steps tinkering around home.
I plan to stick with the 1.25 mile walks this week and get to the gym three or four times for some light strength work.

 

[mendogal]

Nah, reflecting isn't a waste of time - as long as it doesn't cross the line into ruminating, but you're good!
I found it sort of easy to surrender to the post op process, not being attached to a specific timeline outcome, but that's an approach to life I've consciously cultivated for many years. Again, there's always a time when it's also appropriate to check in with oneself and not just try to bury our legitimate worries.

I think you're having an excellent and sane recovery! You're ahead of where I was...

12 weeks: walked 3/4 mile non stop and on non-walking days started gardening and house chores that required repeated semi-squats.

3 months: walking a mile nonstop or doing 15 minutes of yardwork and my knee lost interest in icing except if I slightly overdid it (put away the Breg and just started using an ice pack).

15 weeks: 1.8 miles non stop or 1/2 hour of yardwork.

16 weeks: 2.25 miles non stop.

5 months: 3 miles non stop including up a hill while visiting friends whose hillside home has three flights of stairs.

 

[almostready?]

I share in a lot of what you wrote @Cycle-Path. This has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life bc I’m really no good at surrendering control over outcomes. So humbling and terrifying to have such a big surgery that might be worth it somewhere between 3-12 (or more) months!! I empathize and appreciate you sharing about this side of the experience.

 

[Cycle-Path]

@mendogal & @almostready?

Thank you both. After all my years in the military and a few in law enforcement I learned that it's best for me to sit down every now and then to think about major events. Process them, so to speak. It really helps me to understand, me. It provides growth. It's way easier to just keep moving forward, but sometimes that can bite me in the butt in the form of stressful days that have no actual stressor.

I met with my past employer early this afternoon. The meeting was partially responsible for my musing this morning. They genuinely wanted to see how I am doing. Also, there's three open positions, out of 20 total that do what I do, and they are holding a spot for me.

Next week is my 3 month appointment with the OS. Most likely he'll give me the green light to resume working. I'll just have to decide if I'm ready or not to return. I don't want to be a liability to others or put myself in unnecessary risk before I'm ready. Decisions, decisions...

Got in a 1.38 mile walk with my wife this afternoon at the farm. We took our time and watched the local wildlife, a flock of ~20 turkeys, 31:30 total time. Already at 6,450 steps for the day at 5:30. Not too bad for a new knee.

 

[mendogal]

Wild turkeys are very entertaining to watch!

 

[sistersinhim]

Already at 6,450 steps for the day at 5:30. Not too bad for a new knee.

Not too bad at all! I love walking in nature. It's something about watching God's creatures that makes me realize that I'm but a small part of this world.

 

[Cycle-Path]

I'm enjoying the last evening of a four day break from long walks. I guess it was Wednesday when I started feeling sore all over from not only the walks, but doing work around the farm. I started some bigger projects early this week (blade change on my bush hog and some general clean up). Anyway, haven't done much physically since then, but still got to 4,000 steps a day Thursday to today.

It's funny to think about it, but today I was happy to be able to stand in place and sing at church for 25mns without taking a short break to sit down. Lol. I haven't been able to make that long until today. It wasn't comfortable though. I find it much easier to walk for 30 minutes than to stand 25! Strange. All the muscles around my knee get uncomfortable pretty quickly just standing in place.

Two other small victory's today were that I took down an old t.v. and its wall mount, then I hung new ones in its place. I also hung two big wall hooks for some plants.

All in all things are coming around. Just not as quickly as I would like.

 

[mendogal]

Yes. Sitting or standing are harder than walking.