Check Up

Tuesday is my five week check up and I'm hoping for clearance to:

• Walk w/o crutches or cane.
• Drive.
• Bend over to pick up things off the floor (ie break my "precaution" of staying at 90 degree angle...not that I haven't done this already a number of times...just want to be legal about it)
• Swim.
• Soak in hot tub.
• Get massage, even at scar site.

I'll also be reviewing the knee xrays that were taken the week before my hip surgery...will get opinion re: potential effectiveness of the synovial fluid injections and whether they will help with increasing knee pain.

September MRI and scope showed that my right knee has level 3 and level 4 deterioriation/bone on bone action.  It's a 1-4 scale, so I know the knee replacement is on the radar screen, too.  Just wondering what's the next best step and what will actually help.  

Does another six months w/o surgery make a difference?  I guess it does if I can lose some weight and gain more strength in that time.  Trouble is that knee is truly hindering my PT.  Last night when pushing out chair from kitchen table before standing, my knee somehow tweaked and I was at a big 10 on the pain scale...a number I don't remember hitting in a long long time...ugh.

Well, next Tuesday I'll have some more information to help make the decision about timing for knee surgery.

In the meantime, making plans for road trip to Harry Potter in FL in April, followed by a week in Hilton Head with college friend and her family!  Yes!  Hope to ride bikes there and swim...

On the Right Track

Just walked to the end of my street and back without a crutch or cane or limp!!!!!!
Three weeks post-op and on the right track.
No pain meds yesterday, just tylenol.  Pain meds only as needed and/or once on PT days.

Trouble is, it's my right knee that's been hurting more than my hip.

In September I had an arthroscopy and was told I'd need a total knee replacement.  Hip came first.

Now trying to figure out how to keep moving forward with exercise, recovery and attention to the knee as well as the hip.  At least I know what's next.  Part of me just wants to get a new knee asap and get all the recovery/rehab "behind" me.  Other part of me wants to "buy time" with some kind of injection that relieves severe arthritis pain for a period of time.

Guess it's time to circle the wagons again with the docs.  It surprises me how hard it can be for me to make the phone call to discuss the knee pain or get an appointment.  I called this morning and left a message to discuss with my surgeon's nurse, yet it took at least 10 days to do that.

So very hard to ask for help.
So obvious that is why things have progressed to this point.
Old parts of me just trying to do what worked and what they thought I needed oh-so-long-ago.

I'm working in my "other" therapy to try and soften these edges and let these old parts take a break from their rigid tendencies and just go outside and play....  

Wanna come!

New Parts, Old Parts

A new hip.  It matters more than I anticipated and in ways that surprise me.

I can stand tall.  And the freedom of this new part reverberates in my whole self -- body, heart and soul.  Old parts, old perspectives, old points of view break open as I stand straight and tall.  For instance,  I am surprised by how much I do.  As I notice my frustration with the gradual progress of healing and physical therapy, I see with fresh eyes the part of me that is constantly striving, determined, ambitious.

With meditation, sitting, breathing, study, prayer -- I have been cultivating the growth of a quieter side of my Self.  A calmer part, a gentle part, a simple part.

Both matter, of course.  The striving Self and the sitting Self.

And in the freedom that comes with standing straight and standing tall, there is renewed room for all my parts.