Recovery update

My limited weight bearing is supposed to officially end on Monday, but I've been walking around my house and office.  I dutifully used crutches this week to walk from car to work, and wore my brace every time I left the house.  It does feel like the healing is a bit slower than last time, however, I do have about 90% range of movement in my knee.   I can walk but tend to keep my leg very straight and not a normal gait.  It's painless when full weight bearing when it's straight, but I sometimes feel pain when it's even bent slightly, 5-15º.  I've been doing some heel raises with about full weight.  Also mobility exercises in the hot tub, just bicycling while seated in the water, no resistance.  I'm not going to jump right into aggressive PT on Monday, but ease into it slowly.  Doing some ham bridges, heel raises, and eventually very shallow body weight squats.  It's good to have the blog from my previous recovery.  I hope to be doing some light hiking and casual biking in 3 to 4 weeks.   Hoping the pain will go away as I start mild resistance.  

Continue to eat a lot of collagen powder, capsules, and glucosamine.   Hopefully it will help over the long term.  Over all, I think I've had a good term of healing, no accidents or incidents where I may have caused damage.  I'm fairly certain the root repair is fairly well healed but the circumferential repair will take longer and may cause pain before this new cartilage 'gasket' is broken in.  Patience is hard.

I am tired of sitting around,  but it's been nice watching the IAAF World Indoor Championships from China.   I'll probably watch all 20 hrs of it this weekend.  Been hanging out on my porch by the porch wood stove on the futon in the evenings.  Still cold at night, getting down to 40º tonight.   Last night I tried to sleep with the brace on and that was a mistake.  The weight of the brace made the leg hurt more and I woke up early with the knee hurting in the usual spot.  After having my coffee and collagen, went back to sleep for a couple more hrs and it felt much better.  

Next weekend, I'll be going to the gym to work on bringing back the strength to peripheral areas like adductors and abductors, hip flexors.  Maybe some zero resistance stationary bike and upperbody.  All I've been doing today is bicycle crunches and pullups.  Really need to get HR up.  

I'm going to use my next post to organized my PT schedule.  Weight is under control, hanging about 144-145. 5-6 lbs lighter than after my first surgery.  

Also, the WMAC indoor championship starts tomorrow in Gainesville.  I'm not real interested in it since I can't participate. I had originally thought I might just enter the 200, and try to get on the US relay team, but that's obviously not happening.  Whether I race again is uncertain.  Probably shouldn't.