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Fine, but exhausted

I was doing well with the crutches, or so I thought, even managing to do without them inside on our lovely flat floors. “Oh no,” said the physio. “You’re limping. We have to train you out of that.” So it’s back to one crutch inside, and slow walking exercises (heel to toe) to try to train myself out of it.

The knee operation went well.  Surgeon and physiotherapist are both happy with my progress.  So am I.

Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes.  I haven’t answered your mails personally, for reasons below, but they were appreciated.

I confess, I didn’t think it would knock me around quite so much physically.  For a few weeks there all I seemed to be able to manage was physio, take some painkillers, sit around a little, sleep, then repeat.  I have read books I can’t remember the plot of, played basic computer games like Solitaire, and haven’t done much else.  Life seems to be one long cycle of bed, physio, painkillers, bed.

It doesn’t help that there seems to be no comfortable chairs to sit in.  The couch is too low to get up from, the dining chairs are hard. Small problems in the scheme of things, but my back is noticing.

We have an over-bath shower at home, and the first three weeks I couldn’t manage to get into the bath, so I made do with sponge baths.  It has given me a renewed appreciation for those fantasy novels where the intrepid travellers reach an inn and take a sponge bath rather than bathe.  (A long time ago I voiced my opinion of bathing in tubs—it’s not as easy as it sounds.)  When we write fantasy our protagonists will have running water, hot and cold.

Glad to say, that particular washing difficulty is over, even if I do need a chair and a crutch to get into and out of the bath.

Speaking of crutches.  The physio has this little memory trick for the order of stepping with crutches on the stairs.  “Good step goes to heaven, bad step goes to hell.”  Meaning step with the good leg first if you’re going up stairs, step with the bad leg first if you’re going down.  (The difficulty is remembering where the crutch step goes in the sequence.) I’ve had Meatloaf’s Bad Girls Go to Heaven running through my brain ever since.

Hopefully back to more regular postings after this.

4 replies on “Fine, but exhausted”

Glad to know that you are now recovering, Karen, and well enough to post this update. Sending good wishes as you move forward (backward, up, and down)!

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