Yesterday I had a physical therapy appointment. As usual he pushed me pretty far. Bending is the main focus right now and we didn't make a lot of progress since my last appointment 6 days ago.
It felt really stiff over the weekend, so I expected not to show much progress. Towards the beginning of the bending section I was able to bend it to 52 degrees (with a lot of help... and grimacing!).
Towards the end he took another measurement... 57 degrees. That is the same measurement that I had 8 days ago. I'd like to see a lot more progress over an 8-day period.
My goal was to flex an extra 10 degrees each week.
I'm a little behind now.
Immediately after the therapy I saw my doctor.
He said I was progressing as expected and suggested that I try sitting more often throughout the day with the brace off... allowing the knee to bend until I felt a nice stretch.
He also unlocked the brace to 60 degrees. The brace has hinges on either side of the knee that were locked to prevent any bending. Now I can flip some switches and it will bend up to 60 degrees. I can do this whenever I want to practice walking correctly.
It's quite odd feeling.
For 4 1/2 weeks I've been crutching around with that leg straight, swinging from the hip. (Which I think may be one of the big culprits to my hip discomfort... there's definitely and alignment issue.) Now I'm trying to relax the hip and allow the knee to bend and actually use my quad muscles to assist in walking...
Weird...
In less then 1 year I've had to go through this process of learning how to walk twice!
It's funny how you can take little things like walking for granted.
I had a friend over yesterday for a play-date and it was amazing and depressing at the same time to watch her jump from her chair to help her child or climb the stairs so effortlessly.
Take it from me... as long as you can walk, walk. As long as you can run, run.
Stupid things like laziness can cause your muscles to weaken
which causes injuries to happen
which require surgery.
Shut off your computer.
Get up.
Do something.
Because God gave you the ability!
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