Southwest Orthopaedic Physical Therapy Information Headquarters

"Pat's Amazing Jour-Knee" Physical Therapy after surgery

Posted by Pat O'Hea on Mar 7, 2011 12:46:00 PM

I know it's been a while since my last post, and I can't say that my dog at my post. hmmm?.."My dog ate my blog". Has a nice ring to it. Actually I am doing great. My PT and Docs say that I am  a few weeks ahead of schedule. In fact I am getting around quite nicely - thank you.

leprechaun with beer 12336I ditched the walker that made me feel like an old man. I depended on it too much when I used it and it became such a crutch ( crickets chirping). Okay, bad pun. No but really, my physical therapist said the way I looked walking without it, I didn't need it any more.

I bought a nice black cane and use it only as a backup aound the house and when I leave the house and have to walk more than 100 feet or so.

Physical therapy has been great! The people at SWOPT have been enormously kind and positive. They encourage me to push myself without letting me go into the weeds. That's my personality though- It's all or nothing. The days that I am in the nothing zone- they use the proverbial stick but mostly the carrot. I trust them and that is important. They give me the onee-to-one care I need, but also let me go on my own with some home exercises that really help.

I was told physical therapy after my knee operation was going to be painful- but OH MY GOSH! The most painful thing to do is to just stand up from a sitting position. It feels like my quads are getting ripped from my femur bones. I tend to gravitate to tall bar stools and it's not because I'm Irish and like a bit of the Guiness now and then. It's because I don't have to pump myself up just to go from a sitting to standing position and utter some PG-13 words. I think its a bit like momentary orthopedc tourettes syndrome or something. I mean some of the words that come out of my mouth are like "Peter, Paul and Mary, cripes, pickle witch @*%#!"

I might exagerate the pain a bit because being Irish I tend not to let the truth get in the way of a good story and it gets me loads of sympathy (not from my Physical Therapist though). They just keep saying things like just 1 more minute or 2 more reps and obnoxious tings like that.

Topics: physical therapy, surgery