Me, Myself and I

Very late this afternoon I start physical therapy as an outpatient to rehabilitate my left knee. It will have been exactly thirty days since I had a total knee replacement (TKR) to complement the unicompartmental knee replacement I had on the right knee in August of 2005. At that time, it took me forever to overcome the pain and the weakness, but this time, perhaps having traveled so much of the same path previously, I've been very fortunate in how well I've progressed.

I spoke with someone prior to the Norwich City Council meeting Monday evening about the TKR I had done, which involved a procedure/device from OtisMed Corporation that entails (I say this as a layman who not only has never taken a class in med school but also NEVER stayed in a Holiday Inn Express) an enormous amount of preparation on the part of your orthopedic surgeon but has dividends in terms of fit and recovery time. I carry the brochure around now, Mr. B., because I expect to see you at a municipal meeting in the coming days and wanted you to be able to pass the information along to your wife who is weighing undergoing the procedure.

I had (have?) degenerative arthritis in both knees and had arthroscopic surgery on both at various times prior to swapping new joints for old. People think I'm being cynical when I say how much better my cell phone reception got after the first knee was replaced--I'm serious--I think I have two bars even when the phone is off. If I just knew people to call, I'd be in Fat City.

The thing about therapy, as one of the people I work with noted the other day, is you go into it knowing it's going to hurt. You have to believe that 'no pain, no gain' expression or you're wasting your time and money as well as the talents of your therapist. The visiting nurse who came by after I was first released--actually I had been home less than twenty-four hours and she was putting me through my (first) paces, literally, noticed I was walking goofy. That wasn't the actual term she used, but I understood her meaning. In all the years I'd gotten by with sore knees, I'd made thousands of little adjustments to my step and stride and placement of feet and even how I put each foot down, so much so that by the time she caught my act, the only thing she could do was teach me how to walk all over again.

I'll be thinking about that this afternoon--and maybe in larger terms about how we, as a nation and a notion (how many other places do you know that were founded on a belief that among our unalienable rights is '....the pursuit of happiness'? So it's NOT just Girls Just Want to Have Fun-who knew? I have a small movie in my head that has TJ and Sally dancing with Cindi, please forgive me), have faltered in recent times in how we've stepped and where we've stepped. Maybe this social, political and economic turmoil which (not meaning to sound elite) for me and mine is discomfiting and disquieting but may be more violent, permanent and injurious for someone else, means we need to learn again those lessons that we have forgotten.

And maybe, like the therapy that I know will create its own aches and pains, starting this afternoon, we need to concentrate on every step of the journey, focusing on one footfall at a time and only when we need to pause, should we look back at where we've started and how far we've come.
-bill kenny