Sorry for the radio silence. I usually write these on Fridays and last Friday was a busy day for me. Linda flew to PDX the night before, and I had a lot to do on Friday: drop off two of the dogs (Ripley & Dottie) with our dog sitter, go to my Physical Therapy appointment, then drive to Portland with our old dog (Marky), to spend the weekend. Linda was doing some relief shifts at a Veterinary Hospital just outside Portland, and we booked a hotel stay downtown. We met with Nick & Izzy for dinner that night (only a few weeks until their wedding!) I served as Dr. Goolsbee’s driver to get her to/from the clinic every day. On Saturday, I took Marky to Mount Tabor and climbed the stairs to the summit where the wedding will take place. I wanted to make sure I could accomplish the climb on my own. Using my cane, the climb was actually easy, and I was able to climb the ~300 stairs easily. Their pitch is lower than a household staircase, so I had no problem going up the stairs normally with my right leg.
Going back down was a tad tougher, and I had to do the two steps per stair method using my cane and the railing.
Sunday I enjoyed a nice Father’s Day brunch with Nick.
Sunday night we had Mexican food with Stewart.
We drove home Monday morning. All in all a good weekend.
Since then I have stopped using my cane most of the time. That’s a pretty big milestone in recovery from knee replacement surgery. There are times I miss it, but for most daily activity I don’t really need it anymore. I have my post-op appointment with my surgeon next week, and hope to be signed off for most things I would like to do, such as driving my regular car (manual transmission!), getting in the hot tub, swimming, going to the gym, etc.
My Range of Motion is increasing little by little every PT session. I was able to turn the pedals of a stationary bike at the clinic today (Friday 6/20) for the first time ever, though it was turning the pedals backwards and was quite difficult. I’m not ready to ride yet, but I hope that is coming soon. As soon as I can ride, I will take Ripley (and maybe Dottie) for laps around the neighborhood to start rebuilding my leg muscles. I saw myself in a full-length mirror while in Portland and my legs have lost a lot of muscle mass. Not good! I worked SO hard for so many months to get my legs in shape prior to my surgery, and I’m thankful that worked out well, as it made the immediate post-op process easier (things like getting up from sitting.) But now is the time to build them back up again from nearly two months of inactivity/recovery.