DC Trawler

This week in my messed-up knee

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It’s Friday, which means it’s time for your weekly infodump on my continuing recovery from getting knocked down by a government vehicle and suffering what the medical professionals tell me will be a lifelong injury.

So how’s my knee doing? Take a look if you want.

Warning: Slightly Graphic.

Click this for a picture of my knee as of this morning.

That’s what it looks like at 9 weeks. The incision is mostly closed up, with just a couple of small scabs left. It’s still pretty raw-looking, and that dang bruise won’t go away. But underneath the skin, things are feeling better. My pain level is way down (two weeks since my last painkiller), and yesterday in physical therapy I was able to bend it to 110 degrees and straighten it out to -2 degrees. It’s still not what it was before I got hit, and they say it probably won’t ever be, but it’s getting better. Every day I’m doing my exercises for it, and they’re working.

The main hassle right now is walking on crutches. I can’t put any weight on my left leg for at least a few more weeks while the bone heals, and then it’ll only be partial weight. A lot of the exercises I’m doing right now are to keep my leg muscles from atrophying until I can start walking on it again. In the meantime, I’m having to figure out how to do stuff with no hands free. Namely carrying things. Say, a beverage or a shopping basket. Usually somebody needs to do it for me, and if nobody’s around, I just can’t do it. Three cheers for Peapod! So I’m definitely looking forward to walking on two feet again. Or at least one and a half.

And I’m still taking the blood thinners because of the pulmonary embolism after my surgery, and getting my blood tested every week to check my INR (international normalized ratio, which measures the clotting ability of your blood). I thought we had the dosage worked out, but now my INR keeps going between too thin and too thick. At least I’m only taking the pills now, and not the stuff I had to inject into my stomach. Did I mention this whole thing has been a blast?

So that’s where it stands right now. It’s a long process, but things are looking better. I usually update my Twitter followers on my progress during the week: http://twitter.com/jtLOL. Almost everybody there has been supportive, and their kind words really mean a lot.

Until next week, knee-peeps!

Jim Treacher