(Trigger warning: if you're not keen on medical details relating to surgery and the human body, feel free to skip this)

So after a week and a half of rest, painkillers, and occasionally overenthusiastic physiotherapy, how is that silly ol' leg of mine doing?

The actual incisions of the surgery are healing up rather nicely: I had 5 small ones and 1 large one, and the small ones have almost entirely healed up. I even took out their stitches last night without a single drop of blood. They're still a little sensitive and they'll probably leave permanent scars, but those are minor quibbles. The large incision has firmly sealed up as well but I'm gonna leave those stitches in until this Thursday, when I visit the hospital.

There was a lot of swelling in my leg following the surgery, but over the past 10 days a lot of that has gone down again, particularly in my thigh, shin and ankle. The knee itself is still fairly swollen, but with enough therapy over the next few weeks that should dissipate as well. By the same token my leg was a cornucopia of unappealing colors when I got home, and while there's still quite a bit of that going on at least the damn thing looks largely human again.

Now for the big one: pain. I still experience an awful lot of it, partially in the incision scars and inside the knee itself but especially in my calf muscle and lower knee socket. It's largely bearable when I'm just lying on the couch or doing my therapy: the problem is anytime my lower leg is pointed downward (like, say, whenever I use my crutches). Angling my leg downward --particularly when completely standing up and not just sitting-- massively amplifies the pain in my calf and knee socket, to a degree that is genuinely agonizing if I haven't had any painkillers. I can get through most of the day with 4 scheduled doses of paracetamol, but it is the nighttime and the morning that are proving problematic, and these often still require a dose of (significantly stronger) oxycodone. This, again, should become less of an issue with time and therapy, but seeing as we're currently trying to wean me off the painkillers (so I can do my physio more safely) it is currently a rather painful time for the leg.

But what about the actual functionality of the knee? Bending and twisting comes pretty naturally, but stretching is a big obstacle at the moment. I can't fully stretch my leg without hurting myself, and most of the physiotherapy revolves around fixing that. At the moment I am only allowed to put about 40 pounds of weight on the leg, which I actually rarely do because of the current pain-issues.

On the whole we are certainly making progress, though some areas are progressing faster than others, and the trade-off for slowly reducing my dependency on painkillers is that pain has become a big limiting factor on current everyday life. If I had to guess, I'd say I'll be walking again in about 3-4 weeks.

Fingers crossed.

- Seskra