Dr. follow up, more PT, and weekend plans

Thank goodness it’s Friday! I’ve had such a long week - I think because I’m still having trouble getting a good night’s sleep. If I lay on my side (either side), even with a pillow between my legs, I get sore right on the inside of my knee (I think I found out the cause…more about that later). The only way to not be sore sleeping is to lay on my back, and I’m really not a back sleeper.

I had my follow up with Dr. Gonzales on Tuesday. He was on vacation immediately after my surgery, so I hadn’t seen him since June 4. He said everything is looking really good, scars healed nicely. He was impressed by my flexibility and extension and just told me to keep plugging away at physical therapy. I told him that my only concern was the amount of pain I had on the inside side of my knee, and he said, “Oh, well that’s not really uncommon considering you sprained your MCL as well.” I was kinda dumbfounded – NO ONE had mentioned that to me since I’d been seen this whole time. So he pulled up my MRI report from the radiologist and it was right there, clear as day, “Grade 1 Sprain of MCL.” (Grade 1 is the lowest amount of injury.) Hmmm…the only thing I can possibly think of was that with tears to two meniscus and my ACL, but no tear to the MCL, they just overlooked it. Or maybe he thought he’d mentioned it. I have no idea…Regardless, he said that my pain is likely from that. I asked how long before it gets better and he said a while. I was thinking maybe a couple more weeks, he said a couple more months….wonderful. Eh, nothing I can do at this point. More Advil, I think.

I went to PT on Wednesday as scheduled, and man oh man, what a day – highs and lows. Wednesday was also three weeks since I had surgery. I rode the bike for 15 minutes when I got there since Brandi was finishing with another patient. Kate got me started on some more shuffles with the resistance band around my ankles. Hello, tired! Then I did some squats and calf raises on the total body machine, along with some hamstring curls. Absolutely love doing all of those. I’ve really, really been craving doing stuff since I’ve been so limited since I hurt myself. Then I went over to the table of death. It really is I’m convinced. Brandi flipped my on my stomach and noticed that I had some bruising where she “massaged” my hamstring on Monday. So she conceded that she didn’t need to do that again at least for Wednesday’s appointment, so I lay on my side and she got right to work on my IT band. How do I explain this – bluntly, she was killing me!!! No tears though…still, she kneaded and pushed, over and over. My leg was all red by the time she finished, I’m not kidding. She did some massage around my knee itself and also on my scars (stellar feeling too…). Then back to more stretches and exercises. I love everything there except those frickin' massages. I remind myself that it’s all for the good of my rehab, but it’s tougher to buy that each time. Especially when I woke up on Thursday morning and had a bruise from just above mid-thigh all the way down to my knee. Yes, a really big bruise from that massage. I have a photo at home to upload later.

So, Ben and I are going to dinner and movie tonight. I think we’ll hit the Cherry Creek Grille and then maybe see “Wall-E” the new animated movie. It got good reviews. I wanted to see “Wanted” but Ben wasn’t too into that. Weird – action flick, Angelina Jolie….yea, weird. I’m sure I can convince him to go see it with me sometime. Saturday we are taking Kate out for her bachelorette party with her Denver friends - I’m very excited for that. It’ll be my first night out since surgery. We’ll see how it goes. I may be the girl crashing someone else’s party just to have a place to sit by the end of the night. Ben leaves for Milwaukee on Sunday, and I’ll be watching the finals of Euro Cup ’08 (Spain v. Germany). Have a good weekend everyone!