I'm Vertical

Although I'm still using my wheelchair at school, other than that, I'm vertical. I've been leaving my wheelchair at school, then using crutches to get into school. I used crutches when I went to PT on Thursday. I'm not a fan of crutches, whatsoever, and lets be honest, the wheelchair is even lower down on that list, so yesterday I started just walking in my brace without them. My surgeon said that if I have the brace on and locked, I can't do any damage.

My knee is still sore and there is still a lot of strength I need to gain, but I don't have any true pain anymore. I haven't taken my pain medicine since Tuesday, I've been taking Advil occasionally, but no more than twice a day. It feels really good to get out of the wheelchair and to be able to ditch the crutches, at least around the house. Being able to bear weight through my leg will also help me gain strength in my quad, critical for my recovery.

My incision has been slightly problematic, but nothing huge. Like I said when I went to Cleveland, there is a part of my incision that wasn't completely closed so I'm keeping a steri strip over it to keep it in place while it heals. Slowly, the top part of my incision started to seem like it was doing the same thing and has been a little juicy. My physical therapist had me put more steri strips over the problematic areas and said to watch it. Most likely, it's just taking a little longer to fully close and be healed. There is a chance that it could be getting infected, so if I start feeling sick that would most likely mean that's what's going on. If so, I would just go on antibiotics and it would clear its self up. Because of this I'm not going to push my flexion exercises (range of motion, bending my knee) too much to avoid completely opening the incision.