I had my last physical therapy session for the week on Friday. It went really good. I'm now starting to walk (limp) around while fully braced in a straight position. I have to concentrate hard to flex my quad while stepping, but it is starting to occur more naturally. The pain it subsiding, but the worst spot is the spot where they entered on the medial (inner) side of my knee. I believe this is where the tear was on the meniscus, and where they did most of the repair. So it is probably quite inflamed due to the poking and prodding.

During my PT on Friday, I was successful in bending my leg 95 degrees (the goal after week 1 is 90 degrees), so I'm progressing well. They also did some more electrical muscle stimulation (EMS).

I happen to have my on Twin Stem TENS/EMS device (http://www.medicalproductsonline.org/twditemustun1.html), which allows me to do the EMS at home. You have to be very careful with these devices and should not try it without proper instruction (as you could die - if you do something wrong). This device has allowed me to do my PT work at home and get through a full session. My goal is to do my PT work 2x per day this weekend, and then I have my next official PT session on Monday.

My goal is to get back into the gym sometime this week and start performing some CrossFit (www.crossfit.com) routines. We'll see how that goes.

Well, I have made it through most of the week. Monday was tough. I have had to have someone drive me to work daily, since the brace is on my right leg and I cannot use my foot properly yet. Anyway, Monday sucked at work due to the fact that I had to limp around on crutches. Tuesday was much better, but still not great.

Then Tuesday afternoon, I had my first physical therapy appointment. We worked on some knee messages, flexing of my quad, straight leg lifts while laying on my back, and some leg bends. It was crazy. After only 5 days, my leg had begun to atrophy. I had trouble getting my quad to fire, and after a few tries finally got it to fire, but it was tough. Same with the leg lifts - it was as if I had never lifted my leg and it took alot of energy.

The toughest part were the leg bends. We did an assisted set of 10, and due to the swelling, I could only bend 60 degrees. It felt like my knee was going to explode because of how tight it was.

Wednesday the knee began to feel much better and the PT had actually given me some flexibility. I was able to remove my brace in the car and bend my leg, making sitting much easier. Wednesday night, though, I woke up in pain and had to ice the knee for about 15 minutes. This helped alot and allowed me to fall back to sleep restfully.

Thursday morning I had my second PT session. We did alot of the same, but a little more progression. We did some leg raises, lateral leg raises on both sides, and some leg lifts while laying on my stomach. Then we did some of the leg bends, this time achieving a 79 degree bend - so about a 19 degree improvement.

Then the fun part started! We did electrical muscle stimulation on the quad to make it fire. At first the stim device was causing major pain and causing a 100% contraction of my quad - not a very comfortable position - especially given a weak knee. Then she had me fire my quad at the same time the machine fired it. This was very beneficial. By the end of the day, I was able to fire the quad pretty well. I was even permitted to walk and put pressure on the leg while using the brace and crutches.

So overall, I'm making progress, but the knee is still stiff and very weak. However, pain is minimizing now, probably a 1-3 on a 10 scale.

More to come...

It has been over 2 days since the surgery. The first night (Friday Night/Saturday Morning), was really bad. The pain would not go away, no matter how many pain pills I took. The more I took, the more nausea I had. I slept about 1-2 hours that night, and the pain was probably a 8 on a 1-10 scale. It was very uncomfortable.

I spent most of Saturday sitting in the recliner with my leg propped up. I took it really easy, and kept ice on it all day. The Polar Care Cub is an unbelievable device - it keeps your leg iced all day long.

Saturday Night (Sunday Morning), I slept really good. The pain has begun to decrease. It is probably a 6 on a 1-10 scale. I was able to take the brace and wraps off and take a shower. It was a pretty difficult ordeal. You don't realize how lucky we are to have full use of all of our limbs, until you have a situation like this where you lose one for a short period of time.

I plan on going into the office Monday, so we will see how Monday feels. I'm scheduled for Physical Therapy on Tuesday - which should be very interesting, since I personally feel that my leg will not bend....we'll see.

I finally decided to go through with my knee surgery to repair a torn medial meniscus in my right knee. I believe it was torn during some early Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training last summer, but I don't recall the actual occurrence.

Anyway, after months of aching and discomfort, I finally decided to give surgery a chance. I had tried a number of things before considering surgery. I tried the typical RICE procedures, and I even tried RICE with a variation of ICE/HEAT/ICE, where you use an ice pack for 15 minutes, then an heat pack, then ice again for 15 minutes. This seemed to help, but never healed the actual damage.

I then tried a steroid shot in the knee, which did reduce some internal inflammation, but never resulted in full recovery.

So the last resort was surgery, which I had on 4/24/2009 (which just so happened to be my wife's 38th birthday - she wasn't too happy with this decision, but she is fully supportive and we'll celebrate her birthday on another date).

I plan on documenting my recovery on this blog, as a way to share with others who may be in a similar circumstance, and may need some guidance. I plan on doing my Crossfit routines as soon as reasonbaly possible, but given that most WOD's require the use of your legs, it should be an interesting ride.