This is a picture of one of my favorite recent weekly flower arrangements, larkspur and Queen Anne's Lace. I get flowers each week at the Ojai farmers market; it's my "thing."
I'm struggling with a sense of being actually "disabled." Up to now, I've maintained that everything that's happening to me is temporary and I'll be walking like my old self in no time. I mean, I went to the doctor last May 31, complaining that my ankle hurt and my joints -- knees and hips were achy. And while that would have been enough for most people, I had to go and get hit by a truck just days after -- June 5 -- and everything has gone downhill precipitously since then.
What was a tender ankle turned out to be a torn tendon, which has been surgically repaired, but is still sensitive and weak. Then my knee completely collapsed on itself and I now have a new knee -- and a "knee card" (more later). Everyone is really excited about how well I'm doing post-surgery, but I can't help but wonder how well I'm really doing.
The bad part is that I never wanted to be one of those old people who sat around worrying about her health, and now look at me. I'm up to walking with a cane and can finally make it to the first bench at the dog park (there are three benches at various points each farther away from the car and each -- at this point -- a milestone of sorts).
Perhaps it's the physical therapy that's making me feel so glum. Anyone who's had any kind of orthopedic surgery can tell you that one of the main components of treatment in today's world is physical therapy. It's especially important for knee (and hip) replacement because the body has a tendency to form scar tissue after being wounded so profoundly (cutting off the ends off bones counts as "profound" in my book). As a result, the first thing they do post-surgery is have the physical therapy people come in and get you back on your feet.
This is OK by me. The whole point of subjecting myself to all this pain and discomfort is so that I can walk again, so I'm all about getting up and at it. Of course, the first physical therapist they sent in was about 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, if she'd eaten a really big meal. I asked her when she was getting me up for my first walk what, exactly, she planned to do if I DID go down. I'm not exactly a tiny person, and the laws of gravity are, shall we say, amplified in my case. In other words, I'll go down hard. She just grinned nervously.
Since the hospital stay I've had a physical therapist come to the house for the immediate post-surgery work and now I go to the office. The thing I'm struggling with, though, is that unlike previous gym work, this doesn't make me feel good in any way. In fact, after every session, my knee is swollen at least to twice the size it was when I went in and it's painful and weak for at least a day or two.
I can't figure out why this is supposed to be a good idea. I'm all about getting up and being active. I was cooking the first week home from the hospital. I've planted a lot of my spring flowers, even though I require a lot of help from Rob. I do my exercises all the time and ice my knee religiously. But I move at a pace that makes my leg stronger. I push past mild pain -- they DID cut my quadriceps and it's taking a while to heal and become strong again, but I quit when it really hurts. The physical therapy people only seem to feel I'm doing good work if tears are streaming from my face.
The bottom line for me is that I've become really attuned to my body and it's structural workings and I really don't understand how pushing it to the point of agony is going to heal it.
I wish there were some realistic guide to recovery out there. Martha Stewart had a hip replacement last year, but she likes to be all tough and heroic and it was announced that she was "back to work" in five days. This is unfair to the rest of us, who can't afford to hire the best therapists and medical staff and have to scrape by with whatever managed care allows. It's also not fair because it's simply not true. There is no one who is going to recover from joint replacement after 5 days and it makes those of us who are struggling with our own recoveries feel inadequate.
Watching closely I've noticed that Martha still is careful about her bad hip, but she doesn't allow it to be shown on camera, which is too bad for those of us who are looking to her to have a realistic idea of how the healing process will proceed. It's really hard to learn to walk again when a significant joint has been replaced by a mechanical one. It's hard to get the muscles to learn to work with a made-made prosthesis.
I suppose my point is that it would be a lot easier for me to recuperate if I could get a little less of a boot camp attitude from everyone. I'm not some green recruit who needs to be bullied into accomplishment.
Sigh. I suppose a few weeks from now when I'm walking better this will all seem whiny and self-involved -- at least that's what I'm hoping for.
Oh yeah, back to the "knee card." I'm now the proud carrier of a card that shows an x-ray of my new knee along with my doctor's name so I can go through security checkpoints. That's right. From now on, I'll always have to be carefully wanded down to get on planes -- cool huh?
Another thing: Maybe my disappointment is stemming from the fact that my new knee turns out NOT to be bionic. Seriously. I've tried jumping over the car and NOTHING. Damn!
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