As Christmas Day marked exactly three months since my HTO surgery, it seems like a good time for a progress update.
The time has really flown since those initial housebound weeks and a lot has moved on since my last update at eight weeks post op.
The biggest change has come with weaning off the crutches. I am SO much more mobile now than I was then. I went down to one crutch initially, then just one for outdoors (including wrapping it in tinsel for a Christmas night out with the ladies at the end of November, may as well own it if you have to use it, right?) and I’ve pretty much been crutch free since the beginning of December. I still have a bit of a limp when I initially get moving or when my leg gets tired, but I’m starting to feel much more like my old self and moving a lot more quickly in general, which is a good thing given how much I usually try to cram into each day and how often I’m flying by the seat of my pants to get somewhere on time (or vaguely within the vicinity of that time 🤦🏻♀️).
Physio
Physio-wise I’ve moved on from quad sets (hooray!) to hamstring strengthening (trying to get rid of lingering hamstring tendon pain), single-leg balancing and the early-stages of multi-directional work, all of which makes me happy that we’re making progress 🎉. I’ve also now got single leg quarter squats to add to the list - not something I’ve been able to do since the revision ACL surgery so I’m curious to see how that pans out.
I’m also doing some pool walking to try and really get my gait back to normal and begin getting my knee/leg ready for impact work in the new year.
I had to smile when my physio okay’d hopping in the pool too as the weight through my knee would be ‘so much lower in waist-height water than it would be out of the pool’. I’m so short the pool water is at chest height, I’m light as a blinkin' feather in that setting, I’m practically a buoy…
I tried it out in the kids' pool (which is closer to waist height) last week and had a sharp reminder how different that is and how far I still have to go to be ready for more impact, but hey, it’s all progress, right?
Normal not normal
I’ve made so much progress mobility wise over the last few weeks that I sometimes forget what I can’t actually do yet. For example, we went to a belated firework display at a friend’s house at the end of November and there is a slight grass slope down to where the fireworks were being set off in their orchard. I set off to join the rest of the crew by the bonfire but quickly realised I wasn’t getting down that slope any time soon (in fact at all that evening), so had to wait on the hardstanding at the top to watch from there instead.
Similarly, I’ve just come back from an overnight in Bristol where we took the kids to the panto and stayed in a hotel, before heading back for an ice-skating date with some of their friends (my other half had already been volunteered to go on the ice with them, I’m not THAT stupid!) Going up stairs to the Upper Circle in the theatre was fine but I nearly came a cropper on the steep steps down to our seats (inconsistent depth and no handrail), jarring my knee good and proper in the process. SO back to normal, SO not quite there yet.
On the plus side, we decided to take the kids to Clifton on the way home to see the Avon gorge, suspension bridge etc, and I thought we should take in the observatory and Giant’s cave while we were there.
The steps down to the cave were uneven, narrow and wet but I managed them okay (even if I was very slow as not alternating legs and was pretty much clinging onto the rail for dear life!) There were definitely moments on the way down that I wasn’t really sure I wanted to keep going and questioned the wisdom of the whole escapade but getting anxious about small-fry situations like that is exactly the reason I’ve gone ahead with this whole HTO part of the fix. I’ve become SO accustomed to saying no to doing even the smallest things over the last 10 or so years that I’m now nervous about something I’d never have given a second thought to when I was younger. If I’m going to get scared of going down steps into a cave or nervous of heights, I may as well give up now.
My consultant makes quite the play about getting older and using that to my advantage to stabilise the knee but I’ve always been up for rollercoasters, zip wires etc. and I find myself getting quite nervous at those prospects the older I get. The less I do these things, the more wary I become of them and the less ‘me’ I am. I’m not ready to throw in the towel on living (as opposed to existing) just yet…
Hope, trust and belief
Which brings me back to the themes of hope, trust and belief, I’ve touched on in previous blog entries. I’m definitely feeling more positive about things at the moment - I’ve been dancing in the kitchen on several occasions over the festive period, I’ve done normal things like going for short walks and taking the kids swimming (even if I can feel a bit of plate irritation during the latter), and I’m well and truly back behind the wheel driving and feeling less restricted in what I do. This is all good.
When practising one of my physio exercises at home a couple of weeks ago (stepping forward onto the first stair while keeping my knee tracking over my second toe), I could clearly see that that’s exactly where it was going automatically, whereas testing the same exercise with the other leg showed my ‘good knee’ trying to move inwards, which I’m guessing is what the HTO knee used to do too.
This shouldn’t really come as any great surprise - HTO is referred to as leg realignment surgery after all, so of course the biomechanics will change - but seeing physical evidence of that change, and in the direction we want it to be, has given me a glimmer of belief that this could actually work…
I understand the theory;
On an academic and human level I trust my surgeon, his experience and knowledge;
But witnessing that physical change seems to have let my heart join in and believe that maybe, just maybe, this time the results might match up to the hope/hype.
For someone who is usually so facts and data driven, I’m a superstitious soul when it comes to this knee and I REALLY don’t want to tempt fate or let myself believe this is going to work when it still might not.
Within the last two weeks, Facebook has reminded me of two knee-related events that have made me pause: The first was a post about coming off crutches and glamping near Bude after my first knee surgery 12 years ago (the memory came up on the same day I was heading out for my first outdoor walk, as an event it its own right, post HTO); while the second was a reminder of finishing a 320-mile virtual bike ride I did to keep fit and raise money while waiting for the revision ACL surgery (that one popped up on my feed the same day I was about to get back on the bike for the first time post this HTO surgery).
Why would those coincidences bother me?
Well, the first reminded me how long this surgery train has been rolling now - over 12 years!!!! The second reminded me that getting on the bike was where it all started going wrong after the Revision ACL surgery. There's no reason to think the same will happen again but I’m being super cautious this time around. I started with 5 minutes, no resistance; upped that to 10 minutes on resistance 2 (of 20 😂) for my second attempt, and am now up to 15 minutes at resistance 5. It’s bordering on the irrational but I’m not taking any risks and if that means progress is slightly slower than it might need to be, so be it.
So, at time of writing, things are (whisper it) looking good. Taking inspiration from The 12 Days of Christmas, could 2023 actually be the year 'the medics gave to me… a brand new, stable knee’?? 🙏🏻🤞🏻
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