Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Week 8

Thanks to everyone who's been reading and keeping up with my recovery. It's so great to have such support. :)

Today is 8 weeks post-operation. I think that roughly equals two months, give or take a few days. The best thing about today is that I'm thinking less about the knee and more about other things. Don't get me wrong - my knee still occupies my mind at times, but lately, it just hasn't been as prominent as say, working on a case study for school.

Tangent 1: School's been in session for three weeks now and I'm finding myself intellectually challenged by the material, which is nice. Some courses are more challenging than others - that's a fact of life, but I know that I'll have to give my all if I want to do well in what I'm taking (Marketing Management, Financial Reporting, and Quantitative Analysis). I'm thankful that I got out of Economic Analysis for Managers, and I took Leading Individuals and Groups last year as an undergraduate. And I finished Communications Strategies before everything else started, which was my first graduate course (as an MBA student) out of the way. :)

Tangent 2: Work hasn't been so busy, now that the first few weeks are over. I'm dealing with an average of five to ten students per shift now, instead of 20-25. It'll be nice to work on other projects besides registration, too. Today, I found two student workers doing their homework in the back room, and being a peer of them myself, I couldn't just tell them to put their homework away (otherwise, they'd look at me like a boss, rather than a peer). I had to grab a full-timer to control the situation (homework is a no-no at work, at least in my office) . . . that was a tough decision to make. At least I'm learning what not to do in my communication skills . . .

Tangent 3: I'm no longer taking long naps after I get home from work/school now. It's been nice to have more energy lately, although physical therapy still exhausts me.

I went to my physical therapy session this evening and discovered that my routine changed a bit. Now that I am at the 8-week mark, I have to start working harder to get back to normal:

Knee warmup with stim: 10 min
Stationary bike: 10 min on strengthening
Squats: 3 x 15
Step ups (front): 3 x 15
Step ups (side): 3 x 15
Leg extensions: 3 x 15 x 1st weight plate
Leg lifts: 3 x 15 x 3lb
Short arcs: 3 x 15 x 2lb
Stretching
Game Ready icing with stim: 15 min

I graduated from the wall squats with the exercise ball, and my therapist got rid of my hip strengthening exercises all together. She was really surprised to see that I could do leg extensions so well, despite it being the first time I had done them in so long. The leg extension exercise was the most difficult; my form was off and I had very little strength in my left leg; my right leg carried on the work. The strength will come with time, but I'm happy that all the walking I've been doing has been helping my knee. Go recovery!

Funny note: everyone who knows me who saw Tom Brady's injury instantly thought, "Wei had the same injury!" Boy, do we ACL veterans know how he feels.

1 comment:

Jessica said...

Congrats on making such great progress!

How long did it take before you could walk unassisted?

I don't think my bruise has been aggravated by anything but I have no real idea about that. It's pretty gruesome though.. :)