Last Day

Tomorrow, I've been informed, will be my last day of physical therapy. That's a week-and-a-half less than what had originally been scheduled, as well as authorized by the insurance company. To be sure, there's still work to do. But they've taught me enough, and my body has responded well enough, that I can hopefully do the rest on my own.

To be honest, I've sort of been expecting it. In the past couple of weeks, there have been comments from the staff and even a compliment from a fellow patient, a very fit-looking younger woman whose goal is to run a half-marathon, on her similarly-repaired knee, toward the end of summer.

All of which is somewhat gratifying, although not taken totally to heart. For one thing, I've worked pretty hard from the outset to try and assure a good outcome. But, for another, I know that each patient's situation can be very different. Any two arthroscopic procedures can be very different--and may reasonably yield very different outcomes--even though the two little surgical scars, one on either side of the knee, may look exactly the same.

And that's not even considering the vast difference between these minimally-invasive arthroscopic procedures and, say, a total knee replacement or any of the other surgeries that I've seen people struggling to recover from over the past 5-6 weeks. So, yeah, I'm not going to "break my arm patting myself on the back," as my old man used to say.

There are also those sobering days, like today, when something which you hope like hell is temporary happens--pain, swelling, unmistakable "noise" in the joint--and you're reminded that, yeah, it could be me limping back into the surgeon's office for yet another round of what you thought you were walking away from.

And so, tomorrow, I guess we'll see what we will see...

LPK
LiveJournal
4.18.2016