Today, July 2, was the final day of my Outpatient Rehabilitation Physical Therapy. I had 12 sessions of post-surgical PT which started on June 5, after 2 weeks of home based PT which started May 28, on my 3rd day home from the hospital. The home-based services are acknowledged to be not of a high stress level; they include a lot of education and instruction, and some gentle exercises. The home visitors warned that the Outpatient Services are rigorous, and may bring me to tears. Even the woman who motivated me to seek out the surgeon advised me to avoid Outpatient PT in favor of home-based, saying Outpatient was brutal. I knew I wouldn't cry; I may have cried reading "Old Yeller" or "Black Beauty" (poor Ginger), but that was not in public. No PDA's for me.
Anyway, I didn't find the Rehabilitation difficult at all. At first, I entered a room, with individual cots partitioned off. That was the place for preliminary exercises and those sessions often included moist heat packs to loosen muscles, very enjoyable, and helped with the leg lifts and stretching and other simple exercises. That didn't last for long, however; the majority of the sessions took place in 2 separate rooms. I referred to one room as the Toy Room, because it held all the props: steps, bars, balloon type things, stairs, ankle weights, elastic bands. All these objects, and more, were aids in balance exercises (which I stank at), lunges, stretches, sidestepping, and a host of other devices intended to make you feel as if you belong back in the normal world. None of these exercises were painful in any way, though some were surprisingly tiring.
The second room, the Machine Room, was my favorite. There are about 20 pieces of major equipment in the room, a few duplicates, and I worked out on 6 or so different exercise machines. For some reason, my favorite was the leg press, even after the weight was increased to 45 pounds. That seemed like a lot, until I noticed the weight on the bottom of the stack was 280 lbs. That must be some rehabilitation. I usually started or finished the session on the Exercycle, another favorite, even though I found that riding for 10 minutes got me to just a mile and a half, and only burned 40 calories. That of course was at my speed and resistance. Oh well, this wasn't intended to be a weight loss venture. (BTW, part of the reason surgery with Dr. C. appealed to me was that he said my weight was not a factor in my arthritic knees or would be problematic post surgery.)
Some of the Rehab was tiring, but nothing really painful or even uncomfortable-----except for the what my therapist referred to as "The Zone of Discomfort!" I call that term the Euphemism of the Century. The only exercise that I didn't control myself was the one that measured leg extension and degree of flexion.. This measure involved lying on my back while the therapist assesses how far your knee will bend. That can be painful. I didn't mind the strain on the muscles or ligaments, but the pressure on the kneecap was considerable. I could picture a flying patella. My final measurement was 0 to 124 degrees. She said 90 degrees was acceptable, that it allows you to do most daily activities, but since mine was 105 degrees when I got there, she felt I could go a little further. She thinks I'm at my present limit because the skin at my knee is unable to stretch any further. I agree--the kneecap could fly right off.
Sandie, the PT, said Dr. C. is building a real reputation as a surgeon, and is doing many surgeries, 6 hip and knees at Samaritan just the other day. Even so, she said I was her star patient, that in my case, everything just came together to give a near-perfect result. I know I didn't really have anything to do with it, but I'm glad it worked out that way.
Next Post---Now What?
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