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.

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.