6 months!!

Yesterday was exactly 6 months since I tore my ACL. I can’t believe it’s been that long. Sometimes it seems like just a few days ago and sometimes it feels like forever ago. Either way you look at it, I am definitely getting stronger, droopy leg is un-drooping and my scars are as impressive as ever. Here’s the deets:


PT: still twice a week, but then I’m down to once a week after next week. I don’t know what I’ll do with all my free time! PT at home is the correct answer.

Bend: I’m up to about 115degrees. This has been very challenging. When I hit 90, I was able to start weight-bearing so we didn’t focus on my bend very much after that. I am still making improvements every time, but not as much as before. BUT, having John force my leg to bend beyond its capabilities for an hour and until I was in tears was not that fun. So glad to be beyond that!

Straighten: I’m still having to work at this every day. It’s straight, but doesn’t want to hyperextend like my left leg. I have a feeling I’ll be working on these for a while.

Exercises: This is fun again! We are doing “monsters”(squatting and taking diagonal, forward steps with the band around my ankles). Side steps with the band. One legged squats while throwing the ball against the trampoline. Bosu squats with weights. Hamstring curls on the ball. Leg press. And my least favorite- steps (literally stepping onto and over a step). This week was the first time I was on the elliptical! And also on the stair stepper- backwards. Its pretty pathetic how out of shape I am. But it’s progress!

Pain: I’m definitely sore after a hard day of PT. And of course when I push my knee to bend or straighten more than it wants to.

So what’s next? I got good news this week from my vascular surgeon: my blood clot is officially harmless. It’s basically glued itself in there, has smoothed over and shouldn’t cause me any more problems! So, I officially gave up my stupid compression socks- just in time for the nice weather, too!

I still have another month or so of physical therapy. I have another month until I can start straight-line running. I expect I’ll make it about 500 feet before collapsing, but it’s a great goal to work towards. I can ride my bike now, though I’ll need to switch out my clip-ins for a cage pedal before that happens. I think I might actually go un-freeze my gym membership!