One Year Anniversary

Had my check-up yesterday. Doctor is extremely pleased with my range of motion and all else doing with recovery. Next check-up: Two years. I told him that I am considering doing the other knee next summer- he said if I can wait that long... so the x-rays must have shown up some serious bone-on-bone business. I told him about all the walking I will be doing in Italy and it turns out his mother is Sicilian (with a name like Donald Reilly who knew?) so he/we spent about 1/2 hour on the internet looking the wedding site and he showed me how to use Google satellite to get right down on the ground of a location (who knew?) and we looked at street views of the areas we will be visiting. It was so nice that a doctor would take a personal interest like that.

Anyway - I thought you would find this interesting: I told him the two things that still have me "stymied" is that 1) when I get up from a chair I cannot just start walking - I have to sort of orient myself and 2) although I have started practicing going downstairs without a railing, I am scared every time I am at the top step looking down. There is actually a word for that: propriaceptive sense - the sensors in my knee were cut which signal to my brain the place in space where my knee is. He demonstrated by putting his arms up over and behind his head then hooking his two index fingers together. He said the reason we can do this is that internal sensory awareness - and I no longer have that in my knee. He said I will get more confident in moving, but that the nerves are permanently cut and not to think that it's something that's wrong - it is just something that, if I don't let it get in my way, I eventually may overcome. Interesting! I will also have numbness alongside the outside of my leg/knee.. forever - but that I can deal with - it's just a weird feeling when I shave my leg or go to scratch an itch.

I told him that the year's recovery is not that everything will be back to normal, but that it takes a year to come to terms with things being the way they are... he totally agreed. He said hips are different - in a year you would never know you have a replacement, but knees have a niggling awareness forever. I'm not sorry though it's a small trade for a world of pain being gone.  I said it's similar to childbirth - there would be far many more only children in this world if women actually remembered everything they went through.  He laughed and said it is exactly that!


Anyway - I am going to take a break from blog-writing for now.  Anyone visiting this blog to get insight on early recovery, please go back to my 2011 blogs - they are very informative and will let you know what to expect in your early recovery - I will check back in at various points - especially after the wedding, and as I hit other recovery markers.  And, of course, I'll let you know if I ever get the other knee done!


Take care.
Miriam

Addendum to "Anxiety Girl"

I realized something yesterday.  I think my bout with really severe anxiety is because I am not medicating myself with food as of late.  On the way home from work the other day, I was thinking how I wished I smoked (tobacco OR other) or how I could use a drink (but I really am not a drinker, plus I can’t because of medication).  Then I thought of how a piece of cheesecake would soothe me.  Then I realized that maybe there is nothing in my life that is “worse” than usual, but that because I am not drugging myself with food, my anxiety symptoms are coming to the surface in spades.  Some of it is that I used to eat myself into a “stupor” – taking my mind off everything else.  Or, I would be beating myself up for doing so, so I couldn’t think of other things – or that I deserved whatever happened to me and just accept my fate (rather than fight the things causing the anxiety).  I’m almost shaking because of the anxiety – nothing a chocolate bar wouldn’t soothe….  But alas, I will just have to sit quietly and stay in the present – since anxiety is nothing more than thinking about things in the future (that probably won’t happen anyway). And that present has to be sans cheesecake, chocolate, or anything else of that ilk….

I haven't been posting, not because anything is "wrong" with my diet, my knee, or my life - I just was so consumed by anxiety lately that I just couldn't accomplish anything outside my day-to-day "chores."  I woke up today, finally fairly anxiety-free (after a wonderful gab session with some girlfriends), only to be faced with the news that there was a very severe earthquake in Northern Italy, just a very short distance from where the wedding will be.  Since there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it, it's a good lesson in letting something go that I have no control over.  The wedding is several months away, and I don't think anyone is flying into Bologna (which was close to the center), so I know everything will carry on as planned and be just as lovely and beautiful as it would have been without a recent earthquake.  

I had a good heart-to-heart talk with three friends yesterday about my anxiety (my body is actually "buzzing" most of the time) and we came up with some solutions (and it happened to be the perfect group of ladies for this because they all are, or have been, in my place) - but one activity that I like the best is to make a list of  all the things I am anxious about.  Face them, acknowledge them, then give them a designated time during the day to sit down and worry about them.  If something else comes up in my day that sets my body abuzz, I should add that to the list.  Then, let's say, at 3:30 I take out the list, look it over, and worry as much as I want to about it.  The other 23 1/2 hours of the day, look at another list: all the GOOD things about my life and my day, in particular.  It will help keep me in the moment and to direct my mind to the good things. 

 Anyway, I was going through the anxiety list and one of my friends asked - "Do you have a big birthday coming up?"  And WHAM - I started crying.  "Yes," I answered, "I will be 60 the week after the wedding."  I hadn't even realized that was bothering me so much.  I mean I am well aware that it bothers me, but I didn't realize how close it was to the surface of all that is bothering me.  YIKES.

But meanwhile, I will not medicate with food. 

I have my one-year anniversary of my knee replacement coming up this week.  As a matter of fact, I have my appointment with the surgeon on Wednesday (at which point I am going to ask him to take baseline ex-rays of the other knees, as I am contemplating surgery - maybe as soon as next summer).  I will report more on that later in the week.  I just had to get this anxiety problem off my chest ...

Miriam