4 1/2 Weeks Post Surgery

I know I have been kind of lacking in keeping up on how my knee is doing.  I had the surgery on Jan 11th and came home from the hospital Jan 13th.  They neglected to mention that my vital signs at the hospital were high so when the home health nurse checked it the first time my pulse was 120 resting....a wee bit high.  She sent that info to my fmaily Dr and they sent me to the ER.  I was having no signs of anything and a CT scan, EKG, etc and all they could say was that all of the tests were comming up negative.

My family Dr still can't explain it.  All his blood work came back negative as well so there was nothing to explain why my resting heart rate was so high.

So he changed my bp medication to a beta blocker which has lowered the pulse a little but now I think (from my home bp monitor) that my bp is now running high.  The diastolic is running into the 90's where before it was in the 70's.  On top of that I have no energy.  I can get done with my physical therapy and sleep for a couple of hours.  We will talk about changing back to the previous med when I see him again.  One of the side effects of beta blockers is loss of energy.....go figure.

On to the knee.

For the first couple weeks home I had a home health nurse to draw my blood for the coumiden I am taking (for six weeks after surgery to reduce the chances of blood clots).  I was also having physical therapy here at home as well during the first couple of weeks.  

I was given the clearence to ditch my walker about Jan 24.  I really wasn't using it anyway but my Physical Therapist who came here thought I was doing well enough not to need it.  

I started my outpatient physical therapy on Jan 31.  I started using a bike late last week and yesturday I used one of the weight machines for the first time.  Nothing too serious just 15lbs. working on the flexion and extension....using just the left knee alone.  Today they had me on the leg press machine which kind of looks like squatts but you are more in a horizontal position.  On this I did 150 lbs with both feet trying to use left leg about 70% and right about 30%.  3 sets of ten with that and then I tried the 150 lbs with the left leg alone.  I did manage 10 reps.

Flexion I am past 120 degrees.  Extension is a little more of a problem (only cause I set my goals high) and I am able to get my leg straight to 10 degrees which is not bad.  The swelling has gone down considerably since surgery.  I think the more it goes down the easier it will be getting that last 10 degrees before my leg is straight.  I told one of the therapists I am ready to take a pain pill, musle relaxor or whatever and drop a cinder block on it to straighten it out.  lol

We had nothing but ice here the last several days but the roads look pretty clear and tomorrow it is suppose to be in the 40's here so maybe I can go for a little walk.