New Knee: 3 Months

 Well, I had the TKR on November 30th so I recently clicked over 3 months post surgery.  Everyone tells me my recovery is going great....but I really don't know what that means.

From my perspective four things are true:

1. I can do a whole more today than I could even just 1 month ago and I've made huge progress from those days immediately post surgery

2. I can't do nearly as much as I want to do and still have my painful moments, although for the most part I can almost always get a good night's sleep now, so thankful for that!

3. I don't know if I should feel good or bad about this cause no one has ever been able to articulate a specific set of quantifiable measures that establish the expected or normal recovery time table.

4. I still don't know when I'll get to the point that I consider "fully recovered" except that it doesn't seem to be very imminent.

I am pretty much able to bike and walk (more briskly) every day if I want and I'm working hard 4-5 days/week on my PT.  I have a one-hour PT session with Hash each week and then 3-4 on my own where I'm generally working on my knee for 45-60 minutes.  I do notice progress from these efforts on a week-to-week basis--especially if I look back over 10/15 days to where I was.  Individual days can be up and down however.

My schedule has been crazy with a trip down to Naples, FL to help my 86-yo mom, who is struggling a bit after her bike fall and fracture.  We also had Kara's wedding down in Mexico City, which was basically a week-long affair (and out of this world fun!).  I did however contract a pesky cold (no CoVid) that has been bugging me for the last 10 days.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that Anders, Alex and I did a last minute trip out to Phoenix to see the Super Bowl.

A couple of highlights along the way was the 10 miles I walked on Super Bowl Sunday and a couple of everyday 5-milers.  At the wedding I found that I could jump up and down again (not a lot of vertical of-course) on the dance floor, which is something that I haven't been able to do for 10+ years.  Also, the other day I was late to catch a train and actually ran about a quarter-mile, with a backpack, reasonably quickly and PAIN-FREE (!!!!) and was able to make the train--I can't remember the last time I was able to run pain free!

So the net of this is I've come a long way from the beginning of this New Knee journey but I still have a significant ways to go and I'm not sure how long it will take to get there.  Nothing to do but continue the journey!!

Training wise, February saw more productive physical work in vs. January but still a very long way from my "normal" February.  Notably, I decided to skip the pool work for most of February to concentrate on my rehab and scaling up the walking/biking.  I'm anxious to start a full swim program this month that I expect to continue for the balance of the year, but am off to a slow start so far in March with this pesky cold.  I'll probably give it the weekend and then start my swimming in earnest next week:

January Totals:

Swim: 17,000 yards.  Bike: 142 miles.  Walk: 27 miles.  PT: 6:30.  Total Time: 31:48

February Totals:

Swim: 6,000 yards.  Bike: 329 miles.  Walk: 52 miles.  PT: 10:20.  Total Time: 49:01

Onwards and Upwards!