My Journey with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

"On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."

- Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Friday, April 1, 2011

Incision and Physical Therapy Update

My incision is looking much better, about half the size it was last week. I still have a couple more days on the antibiotics, which I'm looking forward to finishing because they make me very nauseous whenever I eat anything. I'm still going to continue my wet-dry dressing twice a day. I'm going to have it checked again next Thursday and if it looks better either stop the dressings completely, or go down to only once a day.

Until my incision closes up more, PT is a little difficult because I'm trying to avoid flexion. I was having pain under my patella (kneecap) when I did long arc quads (extending my leg up from sitting, bent position with a weight) and even slight discomfort with a regular quad set. Although I would be perfectly fine working through the pain, I have to be really careful not to. Pain under the patella, is essentially pain from the osteotomy to deepen the grove my patella sits in. If I were to push through that then I would most likely be destructing that reconstruction and causing even more issues. So, that's going to be avoided.

The challenge in PT right now is to figure out how to isolate my quad and glutes (mostly on the left side; non-operative side) and work on strengthening. There are many many exercises which target those muscles, but because of how my body is I'm always compensating. So, we have to find one where I can't cheat and where I can work until those muscles fatigue, as opposed to every other muscle and joint around.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the update. Sounds better. 3:45A.M.? Hope you arent having trouble sleeping.

    Ama Jo

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