I'm back, I think

The past few weeks have been a time of rehab, exercise, and pain.  The pain has been coming from my sciatic nerve, not from the new knees.

All the following information is true if I can push through the pain of the sciatic nerve.

I am loving my new knees.  There is no pain whatsoever in them, not even during rehab.  My biggest problem currently is balance and re-learning how to walk.  When you can't walk properly or hardly at all for more than 10 years, your body doesn't react properly to what you did when you were in pain and over-compensating for that pain.

But now...well, if I could run, which won't happen, I would.  I walked quite a bit this past weekend, more than I have since I got the two knees fixed.  I felt it, too!  I couldn't believe that my calves actually hurt from walking.  How long has it been since that has happened?  A very, very long time, and I have loved ever minute of that GOOD pain.

My knees will have ugly scars for the remainder of my life, but I don't care.  I can walk, and I can with care go up steps, very slowly, and rarely.  Curbs don't bother me, but stairs?  I try to avoid them.  I'm still not sure my legs will hold me up -- that old fear factor.  The physical therapist is working on my fears.  At least walking is no longer one of them. 

So, now I am able to cook again, do some cleaning (I still need my friend to do the deep, down dirty stuff).  I can't bend very well because of the nerve problem, which means I can't retrieve things from the refrigerator unless they are at chest level or above.  I'm still not up for doing grocery shopping, and frankly, I may never want to do that ever again.  Four years of having a personal shopper is going to be hard to get rid of.

I had received a packet from the doctor before I had surgery and was warned that this (bending) might be a problem and to put anything I needed to get in the kitchen or bathroom at chest high level.  Reaching up high is not a problem, just bending.  The therapist is working on this also.

I hope and pray I'll be very mobile by the time we go out to Colorado for Alan's high school get together.  Yes, he and other grown-up MKs from RVA are getting together for a reunion at the end of summer.

One more thing in this blurb -- as a result of all this medical stuff, I've lost 30 pounds, can you believe that? 

ttfn