Week 17-18 Update

I approached Friday’s PT session with renewed vigor. Dr. Petersen’s promising diagnosis provided the spark. Judy was pleased to hear the prognosis. I think she sees her hard work paying off, too. In any event, it was time to add some new rehab exercises.

After the usual entre of biking, stretching, leg raises and hamstring curls, Judy integrated a few new wrinkles. The first new exercise was actually an oldie – the wall-sit. For those unfamiliar with this exercise, picture somebody taking a crap standing up. And yes, the wall-sit feels about as good as it looks. Basically, in a wall-sit the patient places his back firmly against the wall, and slowly slides down until he’s in a seated position, and remains there until his quads start quaking uncontrollably. In my case, I wall-sat with my knees bent at a 45-degree angle; more of a stoop than a seated position. I remained in this precarious spot for 1 minute, pressing my palms together in front of my chest for balance and secret prayer. Surprisingly, the wall-sit really didn’t hurt. My quads, though weakened and much punier than they were before the surgery, are still pretty sturdy after years of volleyball and soccer. Of course, my left leg – the good one – over-compensated, bearing the brunt of the pressure. But my knee held up fine. No pain.

Next up was another traditional leg exercise – lunges. Lunges proved more difficult than the wall-sits. If you’ve never done a lunge – or watched an episode of The Biggest Loser – the patient steps forward until his lead leg is shaped like an upside-down L, while the back leg is almost kneeling on the floor. To protect my graft, I stopped my lunge forward far short of the expected 90 degrees. Lunges didn’t feel quite right. They didn’t hurt, but at times I sensed the surgically repaired knee was tantalizingly close to cracking, and rule #1 of rehab is stop if it hurts.

Judy kept things moving at a decent clip. I pounded out another set of 100 lateral heel touches, before cranking out a set of forward heel touches. At this point, my ass felt like it had a starring role in some porn movie called, “Backdoor Adventures.” Ok, that was nasty, but you get the point. For the first time in rehab, I had worked up a decent sweat.

We then broke out the balance board, called a BAPS. I have no idea what that acronym stands for, but those letters are written all over the board. It’s basically a circular slab resting atop a ball. With my gimpy foot planted in the middle of the board, I wobbled the board front and back, and side-to-side, before rotating the board circularly in both directions. The balancing exercises strengthen my ankle and corresponding muscles, as well as stabilize my knee. Eventually, I’ll perform my squats and heel touches on this machine to increase the difficulty level.

I had another PT session on Monday. This session wasn’t as productive. My knee just didn’t feel right. There was a crackling sound coming from above the patella – not where the graft site is located – while using the stair-stepper. The knee made similar noises during the 90- to 60-degree leg extensions. Previously, the clicking sounds occurred below the patella, and almost assuredly happened because the graft site was still hardening (I asked Lars Petersen about this). Again, the knee didn’t hurt, but I nonetheless stopped these exercises out of an abundance of caution. Judy didn’t seem overly concerned, but agreed with my decision to scale back for the moment. The rest of PT was without incident. Interestingly, the lunges didn't bother my knee. Perhaps I didn't lunge as far forward this time. Anyway, let’s hope these noises were just a one-time setback (though setback is too strong of a descriptor).