Ice is your friend

Knee-plus-12 days, 11-Oct-2004, Monday:
Happy birthday! Today, I am 51 years old.

PT in the AM. I can almost get the bike wheel to go around. I think that if the seat is just a little farther back, I can do this. Regular PT routine --- flexion (ROM) is still really tough, though.

I met with the surgeon in the PM. It was a quick visit. Staples were removed. Simple, painless. Incision was covered partially with little SteriStrips, but these seem to have no real function.

The surgeon was pleased with my progress, but wanted more PT. He was unhappy that I was only going to PT 2X a week; and changed that immediately back to 3X/wk. He told me that if the PTers were not hurting me, they weren’t doing their job. He said that I could not damage the new joint, that all I could do was to cause myself hurt (i.e., exercise-caused muscle pain) and that this was both expected and necessary. The only thing limiting my flexion ROM was pain and swelling. Pain should be controlled by meds; swelling by ice.

“Ice is your friend”.

The surgeon was also surprised that no one had told me to go to the hospital for coag time monitoring, and set that up immediately. I went to the hospital immediately after the appointment to bleed.