Knee Replacement: Six Weeks Later

And now for something completely different.

Today I swam. This afternoon I lifted. Somewhere in the interim I took the dog to the dog park. I also took the child to school and picked him up. Dinner was prepared. By me. There's a load of laundry working as I type. While the knee certainly isn't ready for a surfboard, it is improving. I did about 100 yards today without the pull buoy. Granted, I had to swim it in 25 yard segments. At times I thought I would sink since the leg wasn't doing as much work as I would have liked. I'm not mad. The leg did some work. That's a serious improvement. Now that I'm doing most of my own physical therapy, I've integrated light weightlifting for the left leg. The physical therapist gave me some exercises to do. I've added a little weight to them. In fact, I'm now making both legs hit the weights because there is the possibility that my right knee may pay a price for having done so much work over the last 29 years. Anyway, that's two workouts in one day. I could not even think about doing that a week ago.

Those workouts took their toll though. I'm barely awake enough to type this and my knee is more swollen than usual. However, I'm not in dire pain. I just know that I probably did too much.

At the six week mark, the pain is still constant. Thankfully, it no longer feels like I'm being attacked with a hacksaw. It's more of an ache with hacksaw moments. In fact, when I sit still there is no pain at all. It's only when I stand up that I start to wince and use what Spongebob would call "sentence enhancers".

People tell me I've lost weight. I don't see it. I don't know if the weight loss is the result of eating less, muscle loss, an increased metabolism from a body that's working hard to repair itself or none of the above. I'm not one of those women who is always trying to lose weight. I've been pretty much the same size for the last 20 years or so. My ultimate plan is to emerge from this time of forced inactivity with a stronger body and more focus.