Something Bike Related For a Change

OK, enough knee updates. When (if) I get back on the bike someday, I found a couple of cool emergency flat fixes I could use on one of my favorite sites, Lifehacker. The two that it mentions are using a sunglasses cord and a stuffing a bunch of leaves in your tire! It sound like these might a actually work in a pinch. Crazy!

Road To Recovery: Mile 3-4

Things have stayed pretty much the same for the last week or so. Improvement continues to come v e r y slowly. Not only that, but it fluctuates as well. Meaning that I continue to have mentally and physically discouraging days, followed by the occasional day when I actually feel "better." The beginning of week 4 had me feeling pretty discouraged. No real improvement that I could feel. The last 2 days have been better, with some slight increase in my range of motion, and a tiny bit less overall pain and stiffness. I'm up to about 40 minutes on the indoor bike trainer. I might start to break the sessions up so I'm not on it for such long increments. Not only is it boring, but it's painful. Not to my knee, mind you. Let's just say that certain other parts of my anatomy suffer after sitting on a hard racing saddle for 40 minutes without being able to stand up on the pedals at all. I even started rockin the chamois pants to help out with that.

So still a long way to go, but feeling somewhat OK going in to this weekend. Coming up on 2 weeks until crutch liberation day!

Road To Recovery: Mile 2 or "..quick like a band-aid."

Monday marked the 2 week mile marker. That means that yesterday I got to remove the weird plastic strip and bandages that were covering my incisions. I was kind of thinking it would hurt a little, so I was asking Tamara if she should do it quick like a band aid. Well, it turns out that it didn't really matter because it didn't hurt at all. Now that it's gone, my knee feels slightly less weird, and I have a better idea of how it looks visually. It's still pretty sowllen, but it does seem to slowly get better over time. Other than that, there are just two tiny marks where the incisions were made for the arthroscopy.

My range of motion is still not great. I can't bend it more than a bout 90 degrees. There's still some pain, but lately nothing too bad. I'm up to 20 minutes on the bike trainer and I've been driving to work every day this week so far.

The hardest time is the mornings. My knee always starts out stiff, my hands and arms are sore from the crutches and I just want to lay in bed all day. I'm starting to hate the crutches a lot. But I've still got another month on them, so I'd better just deal with it.

Burnin' Up The Pavement

Actually...more like driving like a grandmother. I drove to work today!!! This was one of my first short term rehab goals and I was able to make it happen!! And yes, I'm rockin' the temporary handicap placard. Which is particularly awesome because the parking situation at work is...somewhat less than awesome. As in, there are something like 5 spaces for the whole building. Now I can use one of the two conveniently located handicap spots right by the front door. And even though I'm not technically supposed to, I'm leaving the placard dangling from my rear view while I drive as a courtesy to other drivers. It means "Please go around," or something slightly less polite than that.

This is all because the knee is feeling better after a weekend of basically just sitting on my ass, icing and elevating. Even the bike trainer sessions are getting a little easier. I'm up to 18 minutes now. 20 minutes, here I come.

Slowly But Surely?

Wow, rehab is slow as heck. I think I'm making snail like progress though. The knee feels a tiny bit more flexible than it did a week ago. I'm up to 15 minutes on the bike trainer now, and adding an additional minute every day as instructed. It still feels pretty stiff though. And Mr. Pain is still in the house. My short term goal is to able to drive again by the beginning of next week. The way it feels now, I'm not really confident that will happen, but I'm setting it as a goal nonetheless. People are right when they say a huge part of this rehab is mental. I've had mood swings galore. One minute I'm super depressed and feeling like mondo crapola, and the next I'm far more upbeat than I should be for a temporary gimp. Gotta stay positive!

I found one of the better outlines of the whole microfracture process here today. It covers types of cartilage, the procedure itself, and rehab. It even has neat pictures so you can play along at home!

Road To Recovery: Mile 2 or "This Wasn't In The Brochure"

Week two has been...interesting. So I was right about the pain coming two days post microfracture surgery. On Wednesday, after the hardcore local anesthetic they gave me for the surgery wore off, ol' mr. painy started a' creepin ' in. I'm supposed to do some exercises 4 times a day. Leg lifts, quad stretches and my personal favorite KNEE BENDS!!! Because nothing feels better after knee surgery than trying to bend it as far as you can ten times in a row! So yeah, that hurts. Not to mention the fact that because I started my current job a mere 2 1/2 months ago, I don't get sick days. So it was back to work on Wednesday as well!

After doing a lot of digging on the web, it sounds like it's relatively normal to have this amount of pain and stiffness only a week out of surgery. Especially since the legion was on the medial femoral condoyle. In other words, on a weight bearing area. My gripe is that my doctor didn't really mentally prepare me for the struggle I have ahead of me. He made it sound like a pretty routine procedure. In, out and back to work. No problem! It has definitely not been that easy, and I know this is only the first mile on the road to recovery. But I suppose that regardless of what he told me, I would have chosen to do this anyway, and the result would be the same. And ultimately, all I really care about is whether or not the surgery is a success or not. Dr. Mandelbaum has a stellar reputation as a preeminent orthopedist, and is the team doctor for the U.S. Soccer Team and Pepperdine as well. I think that might explain why there's a sign in his waiting room that says wait times may be 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and everyone (including me) is willing to put up with that anyway!

My best friend this past week has been the Game Ready "Control Unit" ice machine I mentioned in my last post. It's so much easier than trading out ice packs and trying to compress with straps and bands and such. It really provided a lot of soothing icy comfort when the knee was at it's worst. Unfortunately, it costs $30 a day to rent! And insurance covers $0 of that! So alas, Mr. Icey had to go back home yesterday, and my other friend Mr. Peas will take over from here.

Needless to say, working in my current state has sucked pretty royally. I work in a shared space, so it's hard to keep my leg elevated and iced. Luckily my girlfriend got me a little plastic stool so I can at least elevate it somewhat, and use the ol' peas to ice. So at least it's somewhat workable so far. She has been amazing throughout his process. I really can't imagine going through this without her. My mom has been a great help as well. Having that support is priceless.

Another part of my rehab is to ride a stationary bike for 10 minutes a day, and gradually increase my time. I didn't have a stationary bike or a trainer, but luckily I was able to get one for really cheap from a fellow PAA member. It's an old Lemond wind indoor trainer, and so far it works just fine, especially since I'm not putting any resistance on the rear wheel at all.

So with a deep sense of irony, I've been climbing on to my road bike and groaning and sweating through 10 minutes of hell for the last few days. I must say that it has been getting a little better each time. But it still always hurts in the beginning. Oh well, at least I'm back on my bike (sort of)!