Good day.

Good day, mostly. Focused mostly on extension today, and had the JAS brace at the highest setting yet for an entire 1/2 hour without much pain. Dirk's good - I usually go from 3 fingers under my knee to about 1 finger after 15-20 minutes of stretching and massage. Challenge is to keep that same range outside of therapy and move from that deep extension into flexion faster that the current rate of 1 degree per minute....most of the pain is behind then knee in deep extension and running up the side of my thigh and right around the medial side of the kneecap. About the same places as before the surgery.

Saw Steadman in PT. Told him the bike was smoother last night and seems looser. He seems to have decided against the insufflation for the moment and indicated he wants to see me every Tues/Thurs in therapy. If it does occur, he did say I could drive home afterwards. Rae said general or local is case-by-case decision by the OS/anethesiologist for this procedure. Three other people (Dirk, Rae, and Jennifer - another person from the internet boards) mentioned today that he can change direction quickly. Multiple stories of people seeing him in the morning in PT and in surgery the next day. Generally a good thing, though, since you don't want to taint the patient in PT via an anticipation surgery. Jennifer has a completely different problem that me, but we commiserated briefly.

Overall, seem to slowly be improving - now sure how much of the pain is masked by the roxycotin before each session, but there's not much in extension. Through a combination of good OS, PT's and Slurpees (FRAWG today), we can make it.

Details
Swelling last night was 16.75 in on the kneecap, 16.5 (2.5 in above), and 15.25 (2.5 in below). This hasn't reduced much recently, so will continue to be a concern. Started this morning with mobs, skipping the bike and wall slides. Started with foam under my thigh, then no foam, then off the table on his leg - he'd raise his leg to get a little bit of extension as he did this. We then did 10 quad sets for 10 seconds while he applied overpressure right below the knee. Flipped over and he massaged the back of my knee, and then pressed down on it some to get some extension. Surprisingly, none of this hurt much at all. "First time in over a year someone massaging my knee felt like a massage!" He then stretched my knee again while lying on my back.

5 minutes of quad sets, and then attempted straight leg raises again. The quad sets felt much better than a few days ago. Added bridges, 20 x 10 seconds each, contracting the quad each time. Stretched the hamstring, raising my leg in the air while lying on my back.

30 minutes in JAS - started at 3.5 and then bounced it up to 5! GameReady for 20.

Afternoon was almost exactly the same. Started on the bike for about 10 - on 29, managed to get the left to work almost exactly like the right, no 'hip hiking'. Didn't do the ball bridges in the afternoon. Started the JAS at the same place I finished in the morning, at 5, and bounced it up to 6.5, the best so far. Wow. Maybe it's the magic of the Harry Potter book, which I started reading today during my afternoon hour of JAS + GameReady. Whatever the reason, we'll continue it! Bike, wall slides, and then quad sets and hamstring to try and get back into extension tonight. If the flexion stuff doesn't seem to bad today, I'll be jumping (on the inside) for joy....