Month: May 2017

Friday, at ATI, Brad told me that my adductor felt, “Less tight.”  I liked hearing that and Brad stood next to the table on the outside of my leg opposed to sitting on the table working the inside of my knee.  He bent my knee and started working my kneecap.  It hurt less than it did before so I saw that as promising.  We talked about ATI being closed Monday and this talk made me nervous.  I wouldn’t be back until Wednesday.

I know it isn’t the same but before surgery, when I was going to ATI, I stopped going for a while after my injury and it was REALLY BAD!  This  is different; I am only going to be gone for five days not months like it was before. So I won’t be here on Monday,  I can wait until Wednesday. I making such great progress!  But than Tuesday came!

I woke up in pain on Tuesday. The pain lasted all day. It wasn’t the pre-surgery knee cracked open feeling and it wasn’t even MS pain that I am used to after 16 years. It was a constant ache INSIDE my knee.  Ice did not help and over-the-counter pain medication did not help either.

Tuesday was my Dad’s birthday.   I didn’t feel good anyway and the pain in my knee just added to that.   My dad would have been 66. He died when he was 55. I had just moved into my second apartment.   When he died, I remembered asking my friend whose dad had just died the year before if it gets any  easier.  He didn’t hesitate to look me straight in the eye and say, “No.”

I haven’t seen that guy for years but I still crystal clearly remember his face when he said, “No.”   I didn’t believe him then but I do now! The pain in my knee does not help at all! It’s almost been a month since his surgery and Dr. Frush said it would take four months to heal. I’m  choosing to believe him.  Four months is a LONG time!!!

I woke up Wednesday with the  inside of my knee hurting.  I thought it was my MCL, I remembered seeing the MRI with that Pac-man bite out of it. But Dr. Frush would have fixed that.  Maybe it is just sore.  It continued to hurt the rest of the day and I was glad that I was going to ATI!

Once I got to ATI, I told Brad.  He pressed my knee to see where it hurt the most.  Turns out that it wasn’t my MCL; it’s my adductors.  He told me that they were tight.  He bent my knee and began rubbing the inside of my knee.  I’m not sure how we started talking about Seniors graduating but conversation shifted as he really rubbed the inside of my knee.  Brad is younger than I am but he still laughed when I said dreamily, “To be a senior in high school again!”

Then I told him my embarrassing “Summer after Senior year” story; I’m not sure why, maybe because I miss my Dad.  I prefaced my story by saying that my Dad was a Vietnam Vet. After graduation, I spent the summer hanging out with my friends and NOT coming home for dinner.  I was going to WMU in the fall which was on the other side of the state, I wasn’t going to see them!

After a few weeks of me missing dinner with my parents, my Dad woke me up one day and told me that he would make me breakfast and that he wanted to talk to me.  My  Dad made the world’s BEST omelets so I was NOT going to pass that up!  I got up, washed up, and rehearsed my story in my mind.  He just didn’t get it!  He never went away to college!  He started breakfast and I sat on my hands in his chair.  He may have said something simple like I NEED to come home for dinner.  i started kicking my feet then I went I went off on my monologue saying dumb things like, “I’m going away and things will NEVER be the same as they are THIS summer!  I am going away – TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STATE!”

It was here that he stopped me in my tracks.  He took a step away from the stove, pointed the spatula at me and looked me in the eye and said, “At least you KNOW you are coming back!”  I immediately stopped kicking my feet and my breath caught in my throat.  I looked back at him in silence; he took a step forward and continued making breakfast.  I don’t remember what breakfast tasted like that day but I was NEVER late for dinner again that summer.  How could I be SO DUMB?!  He went A LOT further than the other side of the state!  Now, what I wouldn’t give to taste his omelets or to have dinner with him!

I asked Brad why it hurt so badly.  He shrugged and told me that it was tight.  I asked why and he told me that after surgery, muscles get tight.  Oh yeah, I just had surgery.  I’m STILL REALLY limited!  I can’t get into the front seat of my car.  I spend my time at home, sitting in a recliner with my feet elevated and my knee iced.  Brad hooked me up for ice and stim. and my knee felt better.

I woke up Monday morning not feeling well, it wasn’t pain from knee surgery “not well” but MS “not well.”  This fact just adds a fun little wrinkle to recovering from surgery. This really stinks!    Now that I have nothing but time on my hands, it’s harder to block this pain out.

This pain is MS pain and it is a constant  ache inside of my body, my whole body.   Because of its constancy, if I am not doing anything else, (like now) it is hard to ignore.   I watch TV to distract myself until it is time for physical therapy. The ice and stim is the best feeling in the world! In addition to the  controlled movement of my leg.

I got onto the table and Brad immediately started working on my calf. Because I was laying flat on my back, I couldn’t see him and asked if he was using a tool. He just raised his hand so I could see it and told me it was just his hands. I told him that he was GOOD!

He bent my knee and began moving my kneecap around. It didn’t hurt as badly as it did before and I asked him how I felt. He told me that I was moving well. He pointed out that he moved  my foot with ease to bend my leg.  I told him that I noticed my leg was not in “Freak-out mode” when he was working on my calf.

.He said that it was not hard to “break” me. I never thought about it being a goal to be broken easily but that is how it is now.  Tone in my legs is extreme and I’m grateful that Brad (and Luna) don’t give up on me.   Regardless of how difficult it may be on any given day. This day, it was easy.

He moved my foot closer to my butt so my knee was more bent.  I asked him why the bend felt tight, he asked if it hurt( but it, didn’t so much.   It didn’t feel good and it didn’t feel as if my knee was free  to band.  I pointed out that it felt really tight on either side of my knee cap. He continued to rub my knee out and told me that it was swelling.

I thought I was doing so well with recovery! I told him that I believe Dr. Frush now, this REALLY is a four month recovery and not something that will happen very quickly! He laughed.   He worked my knee to loosen up the tightness I felt which is from internal swelling in my knee. I am progressing, but it’s  for sure SLOW and steady.  Mira hooked me up for stim and ice and I was grateful.

It’s cold today and on the way to ATI, it was raining, the big splotchy kind.  There was a dull ache in my knee, not a throb but a constant ache.   My knee felt a little swollen. We  were early for my appointment and when Brad came over and asked how I felt; I searched for the correct word to describe the feeling in my knee.

When the words did not come to mind, I just said it was raining and kind of puffed my cheeks out a little bit. I told him that’s how my knee felt.   Once I was on the table, Brad squeezed a lot of massage lotion on my knee and began to work  standing up. I asked him how it felt and he  looked at my knee and pressed it with his fingers. He said it looked a little bit puffy.  Right around the incisions.

I asked him if that was normal, for it to NOT be swollen and then to get swollen. He told me that we are moving it a lot more so it might be from that.   He rubbed my knee for a long time and it felt better. Then he started kneading my calf.

It hurt a little bit and I winced. The tone in my legs reacted by twitching away from him. He asked me if it was tender and I nodded. I asked him if THAT was normal. He said it was and told me why. The calf muscles  run up my leg and connect at my knee so when the knee is worked on, it can cause the calf muscles to tighten.  (Basically, I think).

He sounds super smart when he talks about it because he knows exactly the reasons why my muscles behave as they do.  I think that was the gist.   He bent my knee a few times but did not measure and then he moved my straight leg out to ward toward him. I could feel the stretch  in my groin.  And felt good to have a different movement in my leg other than just being straight out in front of me all day!

Before he hooked me up for ice and stim,  my knee and calf both felt relaxed. The first time all day! With the cold and the rain, I was reminded that I have MS. I ALWAYS feel terrible in the rain! (Barometric pressure and stuff).   So today it was apparent that this is going to be a long recovery; and oh yeah, I have MS.

With a great report at my first post op appointment, I was feeling pretty confident! I’ve been consistently progressing well at physical therapy and reached my goal of bending my knee to 90°.   But then there are days like yesterday.

Days that serve as reminders for me that I DID just have knee surgery! I did not get approved to get my brace unlocked, therefore I cannot even put any weight on this surgically repaired knee.   My knee hurt a lot! It wasn’t the cracked-open feeling I had in my knee before surgery but it was an ache that I know will feel better eventually; but it does it right now!

I was on time for my appointment at ATI, I worked with Brad. As I was getting ready to get on the table, he asked how I felt. I told him that my knee hurt but it was a better pain than it was before but it still was in pain!  Once I was on the table, he rubbed my knee and pushed on it with his thumbs.

He kneaded my calf a bit and worked on bending my knee and it’s range of motion a bit, but primarily he rubbed my knee out. I asked him how it felt and he said there were some, “Tight spots.” As he did this, he had his, “thinking face” on.

I told him how I had seen the “thinking face” on Parker ( my MRT therapist who told me about Mike Barwis), Mike Barwis, Jesse (my first trainer), Phil, Michael, Sue, and Nick (among others), and everyone I have seen at ATI. I asked him if he sees “grids” on my body.

Like, Tron grids.  I always imagined that Parker saw them but he didn’t and Brad just laughed and said that he doesn’t either. I asked him if his hands hurt, he shook his head and  told me,”Not really.” He talked about tools that therapists use to save their hands.  (I am familiar with a few of them).

He told me that hands are the first things to go on physical therapists and they get their hands worked on  at physical therapy when they do.  My time was up and he hooked me up for stim and Larry put my ice on. That’s my favorite part!   My knee had started to feel a lot better!