So it’s been over a year now, I’m out of therapy but still continuing by myself. I’m back at work and trying to get back into my groove. I do have to make a disclaimer of sorts. I was told by my doctors that my recovery is not standard nor was my condition when I was injured. I’m not trying to discourage you I just want you to have realistic expectations for yourself which your physical therapist and doctor should discuss with you. Regardless your recovery won’t be the same as anyone’s so don’t get hung up on it. Comparing your recovery to someone else’s expecting things to be the same no matter how similar the injury is the worst thing to do but reaching out to people you feel will understand your struggle can be helpful, just keep in mind you’re a different person and that’s fine.
If you just want the "short and sweet" version, my injuries were as follows :
Compound fracture to my left femur, several micro fractures around my pelvis, hip fracture, sub clinical concussion, two chipped teeth, some cuts and something wonky was going on with my neck. Heads up I’m going to put a before and after picture of my femur at the bottom of this post, I originally had a rod and three screws but now i have one screw and the rod remaining.
Therapy was a good long and at times painful road. I still have to consistently exercise on my own, which I would need to do anyway for aerials (which I am able to do but it does hurt) but now it hurts to slack off. I did have to stop therapy at one point for about a month. I’m not gonna go into all the details but it was depressing and painful, I put on over 10Ibs and I’m still getting it off so fore warning make sure you have great insurance or plenty of money put away or both is good but seriously check your health insurance and your car insurance(I haven't had any issues with my car insurance though,they're wonderful).
Personally I could’ve stopped therapy a tad sooner but I wanted to make sure my job wouldn’t regress the progress of my knee bend as my job is all standing for hours. At this point I’m working on getting power back, right now I’m at a jogging level(I can just about run though) and my knee bend is about 8 degrees away from the bend on my right side. This is all good but not good enough for me and yes, therapists would look at me like I’m nuts when I’d say this in comparison with the standard (I’ve worked with several within the same company) so I’m gonna keep pushing so I can run and hopefully fully bend my knee. I know 8 degrees may not sound like a lot to you but it’s a ton for me.
*120° is what’s considered standard or recovered after a total knee replacement or injury like mine causing loss of bending, 145°/150° is a full bend.
this is my current bend
So basically I’m good, I did dry needling at therapy which was helpful but it’s more of a short term relief so I’d like to try acupressure. I try and do light exercising and stretching through the week, not gonna lie sometimes I skip the weekends. I do about 2 hours at the gym once a week, I try and go twice or use equipment at home, my gym has a pool so other times I’ll do about 1 1/2 of aqua therapy and regular swimming. I definitely recommend aqua therapy but it’s no substitute for manual therapy and consistent home exercise. I also use ice packs and muscle tape and occasionally a heating pad. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask, I probably left plenty of things out that people might want to know. Also I believe I mentioned uploading my recovery footage but I was looking at it and it was really depressing so I probably won’t upload it, it’s possible I will if people just really want to see it or think it’ll be helpful. Below is my femur before and after. Here is my last update on my leg.
No comments:
Post a Comment