No one ever says that the (orthopaedic) recovery period is easy, they say it’s worth it, it’s challenging, it requires dedication and it ultimately leads to a greater degree of freedom than your pre-op state. The part that people who have got to the other side seem to forget to mention is the pain, the humiliation, the isolation, the desperation and the tears. I am as guilty of this as the rest but the only person who isn’t helped is the person currently going through the recovery period who is sitting there hearing all the platitudes about how it will all be worth it in the end.
The reality or recovering from a major joint surgery is that the structures that allow your leg to work, the muscles, ligaments and tendons are damaged in my case the hamstring also had several strands severed and relocated. There is an open would roughly 10cm long down the front of you leg, beginning above the knee and continuing down the shin as well as a small but deep wound to the outside of the knee which was used for the insertion and manipulation of a scope. Finally add extensive swelling and bruising to the entire knee, especially around the two wounds and the inside of the knee where most of the work with the hamstring was completed and the hypermobility testing was focussed. Add to this a couple of weeks immobilised in an ankle to hip brace and a case of dry skin that is akin to the feeling of scratching the skin of a pig or an elephant and is as painful to move as the damaged internal structures.
So there we have the physical damage, extensive yes, permanent, some of it, agonisingly painful, all of it. Having completed the inventory let me ask who among you readers would feel happy to lie on your stomach with your bruised and (in my case infected) touching the surface. My guess would be not too many of you! However this is how 50% of my physio is carried out. The other 50% involves attempting to do a straight leg lift (which is only possible once the quadriceps tendon, patella and patella tendon have all recovered sufficiently) in essence in the early days it is a lesson in futility. The final ‘resting’ exercise (meaning no weight bearing) is to sit on the edge of a bed and swing you leg as far forwards and more significantly backwards as it will go. This is my favourite of the exercises however it is not one that is very east to control resulting in the frequent kicking of people or objects that really should have been outside your range of movement (the comedy factor may well be what makes it my favourite). Finally there is the standing exercise that anyone who had ever experienced knee physio will quickly have learnt to hate: squatting by a wall-taking all the tension and damage and open wound and tight skin and trying to force it into a crouching position while sliding down a wall. It is an exercise that most people who have never experienced any knee problems find agonising; let’s leave it at that...
So there is the physio stage of recovery, but it is by no means the only concession you must make for your healing body. As well as the ubiquitous painkillers (which those of you with EDS will know have a minimal effect thanks to our rather unhelpful superpower of metabolising pain relief far too quickly) I am currently on 19 recommended supplements, not let me set you straight, these are not nice easily swallowed pills they are giant horse pills averaging 1.5cm by .75cm, some are bigger. This delightful cocktail takes place following the evening meal. The other and most high maintenance reality it the constant requirement to clean and moisturise the knee. A job which requires a minimum of three moisturising products and a large supply of cotton wool. And which must take place a minimum of twice a day; although the number of times you do physio is generally the number of times you moisturise in order to avoid that tearing feeling!
Finally there is the mental and emotional reality of what you are trying to achieve. When are lying in bed in the middle of a cold spell with the duvet on the other side of the bed, pillows under your thigh and ankle and your softest pair of trousers rolled up above your knee because anything touching the nerve damage is too painful yet you are still crying because the air and goose bumps are agony you begin to wonder how worth it the surgery really was. When you are sitting on a shower board with the shower head aimed at your knee trying to stimulate the feeling of a bath because the reality of getting into the bath is an impossibility but you have to try something to try to release the tension in your leg you wonder why you did it. And when you sit alone in a penthouse flat knowing that you can either do the 98 steps to get downstairs then back up or go for a walk but not both you wonder how it could possibly have ever been worth it.
Recovering from surgery is hard, it’s painful and lonely and isolating. The chance of finding a position to sit in that it comfortable for more than 5 minutes is roughly sixty million to one. It’s a long, frustrating, agonising journey that is hard to understand and hard to experience. But it is a recovery. However long it may take and however many tears it takes to get there the chances are that if you have made it as far and surgery and physio you will eventually make it through the recovery.
No one tells you that recovery is easy; they also don’t tell you how hard it is. They don’t tell you about the nightmares of coming down from pre-op long term medication or that sleep is going to be hard work along with everything else that should be so easy but is suddenly very difficult. No one really wants to talk about the agony of recovery; it’s a bit like child birth, agony at the time but worth it when you see the baby. Well I’m very familiar with agony (though I doubt it is comparable to childbirth) and hopefully at the end you will get a functioning limb, the only thing is I think I’d rather have the baby at the end!
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