Take it easy!

So it appears I've worked a little too hard on my knee on Saturday as it was very sore on Sunday. My Physio said to go easy on it the next few days then ramp it up again. I've decided to take a break from the one legged squats on the bosu ball since that's by far the most strenuous, and I'll leave out the stair climbing. I have to continue to work on massaging the scar tissue as that's the biggest bottleneck right now.

I also got a chance to throw around the disc on Sunday which was nice! My flick hasn't deteriorated much which is comforting.

3 Weeks in Review

My knee is shaping up quite nicely! Although still stiff at times I've achieved a lot goals. My physio says I'm ahead of the curve and I only need to see him once a week now.

Status:

• Knee flexion to 115+ degrees
• Can ride a bike now without grunting every revolution
• One legged Bosu Ball balance for minutes without falling
  
• Easily climb up stairs, going down.. not so easy
• Calf raises are a piece of cake
• Walking is getting to semi-normal. Because of the tightness it's still not smooth to bend the knee
• I can ditch the leg raises (my least favorite exercise)
  

Goals + New Exercises:

• 120+ degrees flexion
• Break down more of the scar tissue
• partial squats while doing one legged bosu ball balance (very tough!)
• Calf raises on stairs
• Hamstring curls
• Walk Normal
• Walk down Stairs normally without pain.
  

Now that the weather is finally warming up I should be able to go for longer walks. I still tire pretty quickly but that should change once I hit the bike more.

Chirowhat?

So today was chiropractor day. As many people have questioned "what the hell is he going to do?", I took the liberty of visiting him to find out. He is technically a sports chiropractor and was recommended to me by the surgeon.

It turns out he doesn't do any back breaking stuff on me, just tons of pressure and knee bending + acupuncture to help bend the knee. He worked on my knee for about 40 minutes. Overall he was very knowledgeable and explained why / how to get the scar tissue to break up so that I can have more freedom bending. I also checked out his skill set on the website and it's very similar to my physios except he has a chiropractor degree. So technically, the visit didn't involve any chiropractor stuff at all. He also plays Ultimate Frisbee which was cool! He got my knee to 100 degrees flexion and it's definitely not as tight as it was before!

This morning I had a dream I was chasing a disc and I jumped up to catch it. As I caught it I woke up. Ohhh what a tease! But only 164 days and I can play again!... although I've decided (along with the advice of the chiro dude) I won't be playing 4 nights a week.

Booya!

Andrew is at 90 degrees flexion after only 6 days! ... although it's still quite tight. I've also started on the hamstring strengthening, which gets strained very quickly.

2 Weeks in Review

It's hard to believe it's been 2 weeks since the surgery. It's nice to know I'm on the road to recover rather than just prepping for surgery. I'm currently behind schedule with the progress of my knee due to being told not to bend my knee for 10 days after surgery. I should never have been told this but it's water under the bridge now.

Status:

• I've gone from a 30 degrees bend to 60 degrees in 3 days due to extensive bending while programming.
• I have full extension
  
• I'm currently able to step up stairs (albeit, very slowing) but going down stairs is very difficult at this time.
• My legs feel like they've retained a fair amount of muscle which is great.
• The glider is fairly easy with 3 bands (lying down quad squats).
• I can do lots one legged calf raises.
• Balance is fairly decent: I can last for minutes without help while doing a one legged balance on an unstable pad.
• My hamstring is currently the weak part. It gets pulled fairly often, but this is normal considering 2 of my hamstring tendons are now inside my knee pretending to be an ACL.
• Walking is not normal at this time due to having to force my knee to bend.
• I haven't felt pain in awhile, but I still take ibuprofen,aspirin, tylenol a couple of times a day to help with the soreness and reduce some of the inflammation
  
• Sleeping is almost normal again. My body enjoys waking up at 4am for silly reasons.
  

Goals:

My exercises, 3 times a day, are: squats, calf raises, hip raises, leg raises, one legged balance, quad crunches, glutes extensions. Plus the usual non stop bending of my knee to catch up. My goal is to get to 90+ degrees bending within the week

At this point my moral is fairly high, although at times it's hard not to think about the lost meniscus + cartilage cracks which will eventually lead to osteoarthritis. When I get back into sports I'll have to decide between 2 options: Reduce the number of nights a week I play or face the consequences of pain in the knee in 5 years.

Regardless of the downsides, positivity is my best option at this point. How to remain positive? Watching ultimate frisbee videos of course! This college team to have recorded all their tournaments and packaged all the highlights into one video.