The Little Things
May 22, 2017

As you might recall, 13 weeks ago I hurt my knee and have been on crutches ever since. Yes. I’ve survived 13 weeks on crutches. So, I thought I’d give you all a quick update:

My knee IS getting better, albeit incredibly slowly. I’ve been icing and doing PT and compressing and elevating my heart out, and it’s definitely been making a difference. I’ve worked hard and, with a lot of effort, can bend my knee to 90 degrees, so while that sounds like a little thing, it’s definitely not! Like I said, it’s not comfortable and I don’t sit like that often- normally my leg is elevated and straight. The swelling has actually gotten a little bit worse, so that’s not ideal.

Mentally I’m starting to feel a bit fussy about the whole thing. I’ve done pretty well about staying upbeat about the whole thing (even in Mexico), but honestly I’m getting a little tired. If I had a set number of weeks that I needed to get through to get to the other side, I could handle that more than I could with it just being an unknown number.

I’m struggling with not being able to really carry things for myself. With crutches you don’t have hands you can use while walking, so I can’t get myself food, can’t get myself coffee, can’t do very basic things for myself. At home I have to not use crutches sometimes, of course, but otherwise I have people doing a lot of things for me, which is nice.

I’m feeling frustrated that I can’t go on walks, runs, or bike rides. I really can’t work out much at all, except for doing some upper body lifting. For 13 weeks. I haven’t gone that long without any exercise since… before I started exercising.

I’m really struggling with feeling comfortable sleeping. Every night I desperately want to sleep on my side, but I can’t because my knee hurts too much to do that. I sleep on my back, every night, without moving, and with my knee elevated. Fussy. I give myself 2-3 minutes on my side just to get comfortable, but then my knee hurts so back to my back I go.

But really, I just am frustrated with not being able to live the normal rhythms of life. But when I get tempted to complain, I think about how much worse it could really be, and that helps to ground me. Frankly, despite my frustration, I can move and walk and get things done, and I don’t want to take that for granted.

So, there’s a quick little update on how my knee is doing.

←

One response to “A Quick Knee Update”

  1. Abby @BackatSquareZero says:
    May 23, 2017 at 8:15 pm

    I am so sorry – 13 weeks on crutches is a long time.