Cane-free but not yet Pain-free

A few days ago I left my cane behind. Not literally. It's still in my kitchen, getting in my way. But I decided to try walking around without it. My leg notices but I think I walk pretty well without it. I don't need to limp. As always, my concern is with my posture.

During the day I experience pain in little ways. When I put on my right sock and shoe (diminishing pain, happy to say). When I pull my leg into my car (just a little). Mostly I feel that tension that never goes away when I am on my feet. The therapist says we're gaining on it, on the straightness. I'm not sure; I think he may be delusional.

At night is where the pain rubber hits the road. I have trouble with restless leg - just the right leg - and often I awake with pain in my right knee. Sometimes it creeps down to my foot, sometimes the pain is more on the right side of the knee, sometimes the pain goes up the thigh. It is all the same, though, pain that is impossible to ignore. Oddly, if I sit on the edge of my bed for a few minutes, with my legs hanging over, the discomfort tends to go away. It doesn't usually stay away. If I get up and walk around that tends to help a lot. I just never feel like getting up and walking around. All I want is to get back to sleep. My resistance to what I know works knows no bounds.

In therapy I am still not entirely up to the former levels I used on the machines, but getting closer. I'm happy to wait. More often I find I have no pain on the hip machine, which is a really big deal to me.

Today's challenge is going to wear me out. I am going to Santa Barbara on a train with a bunch of other Aqua class members and friends. Once there we will walk around, do whatever we want, until the train leaves late in the afternoon. Many will shop. I see little shopping in my itinerary. The challenge for me will be to get through it. Finding enough places to sit down, making my way on the sidewalks to where I want to be. I am so often reminded that most of the things that are enjoyable to so many involve walking and standing. I admit I feel impatience that after three surgeries I am not there yet. I think back to the years when I could walk and walk forever. I want to do that again, to enjoy it, every step.

It hurts

My first full day out in the open. I decided that a good way to celebrate would be to get a pedicure. However, there was a park-wide yard sale this morning so I extended my daily short walk to take in the whole park and to stop at a few places and chat. I talked to one of the yard-salers for several minutes, and I could feel my leg hurting while I stood there. She was enthusiastic about my knee surgery because she herself had had it done a few years back and is very happy with it. She had other medical tales to tell as well, so the standing kept on. Finally I broke away and headed home.

I keep wondering about this walking. It seemed that I was walking well and generally without pain at the transitional care center, but each day when I set out now I am not all that comfortable. Of course I am working on how I walk, how I hold myself, how I step, how I breathe. I am also not on any drugs during the day. A few more weeks, perhaps another six weeks, and I should be walking longer in comfort.

So many different types of women come here.

I headed for the pedicure at about one in the afternoon. When I walked into the nail place the woman asked me to come back in a half hour. The chairs were almost all full.  Both manis and pedis. I think Saturday is a very popular day for nail work. So I left the building and decided I'd walk to Vons, which is in the same center, and pick up a few groceries. I made my way over there and, relying on the grocery basket for some support, I picked up several things and headed back to my car. I put the bags in the car, then went into a coffee shop for a cup of tea. Finally it was time to go back for my toes.

That's a little fan aimed at my toes.

The pedicure went without incident. No issues with my knee, I'm happy to say. And my toenails are blue! I returned to my car and drove home from there. It wasn't really a big day but my knee hurts. I think I may have given it a little too much to do today overall. Reality bites.

A Walk

Today I went on a Walk for Farm Animals. This is a walk to raise awareness of the plight of farmed animals, and it is the third year in a row that I have done it. Our local walk simply makes a loop around the downtown area, and takes about 45 minutes. With stopping at stoplights it takes a while to get anywhere. I'd guess the route is about a mile or a little more.

I was still in some pain when I got to the start of the walk. I had just returned from a trip south last night, driving both ways, and trips do make me stiffer than usual. Still, I thought I would relax a bit and get more comfortable as the walk went on. It didn't. It was painful from start to finish. I focused on walking on the inside of my feet and holding myself as straight as I could but it was clear I was limping a little and that I was in pain. I had really hoped that by this time I would be walking more easily but it is not to be.

I have been reading a book about the lives of some individual farmed animals who were rescued. Because of the way chickens and pigs are bred, they gain weight rapidly and their bones cannot take the weight easily. The factory farms where they are raised are not concerned with this condition because they slaughter the animals when they are still babies - six weeks to six months old. But the lucky ones, the ones who are rescued, are left to suffer with the results of this breeding. Turkeys, chickens, and pigs reach a point when their fragile bones cannot support their weight. The hens are further depleted by the egg-laying. A factory-farm hen lays several times as many eggs per year as a hen who has not been bred for this purpose, and the laying depletes the calcium in their bones.

Thus all of these animals have trouble walking, too. I can relate. I don't carry as much weight as they do relative to my bones but I can relate.

Learning to Walk Again, and Other Stories

not my knees but they could be

I have been trying to put my finger on what especially disappointed me about my last visit to the physical therapist. Paul answered any questions I had but I did not know what to ask, perhaps. As I thought about it later I realized I wanted more of a "test". I wanted to know more about what I have accomplished, and the tools at Paul's disposal would not really give me that. I have thought about this some more and figure eventually I will get a complete physical, or at any rate a near-complete one, perhaps when I first can start on Medicare, which is next January.  That won't tell me where I've been but it will provide a marker for the future.

In the meantime I have been trying to work in the new Paul exercises. I haven't done all of them yet even and I haven't worked out when I will do them or how often. I am thinking I'll blend them with my morning routine eventually, but I will also fit some in throughout the day.

One of the new exercises is the rising from a chair one, without hands. I have been doing that somewhat randomly, as it occurs to me and when I am in the right frame to do it. I have found that if I have been sitting for a while it is going to be too painful. So when I am near a higher chair or the bed I try it then, a few times up and down.  This is going to be tremendously important as time goes on. As I am better able to rise and sit without hands my life is going to be different, better.

Similarly walking. I have been trying to focus on my steps every time I walk now. At first it was awkward but it is getting easier and it seems to be causing me less pain. I sometimes think of myself and "my new legs", feeling such hope that as I adjust my gait the pain will gradually lessen and again my life will be better.

None of it is instant. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Paul said, "Have you tried X?" and I try it and say, "Wow!! I can walk without pain now!" No instant therapy here. Yet I feel these latest exercises are coming closer to what will really help and I will see a difference, I will be able to tell maybe in a month.

Arch Support

The first time I met with Clara she mentioned arch supports, noting that I have flat feet or whatever they call it. I said that I used to wear Birkenstock's arch supports, 3/4 length, because they were recommended by a physical therapist I was seeing years ago. I used them in my Earth shoes initially but later took them out when it seemed like the two things - the design of the shoe and the arch support - might be contradicting each other.

I decided to add arch supports back in. Today I went to CVS and found Dr. Scholl's Arthritis Pain Relief supports. They are supposed to relieve pain from knee, foot, or hip. You can read what Dr. Scholl's says about them.  I put them in just a little while ago and I think they may actually be helping! I don't know if they negate the value of the Earth shoes, but I don't think so.

And now a word from our sponsor...

At the beginning of this month I wrote about the Arthritis Foundation's new campaign, "moving is the best medicine", at the request of a company representing the foundation. In that post I offered you, dear readers, the chance to win one or more of the items in a gift package from the foundation.  The package includes:

A copy of Walk With Ease (book)

A DVD of Tai Chi For Arthritis (2-DVD set, actually)

A set of light dumbbells

A coupon for Scrubbing Bubbles automatic shower cleaner

Pilot Dr. Grip Pen

Hefty 1 zip storage bag coupons

Cardinal EasyOpen Binders.

Well, the sponsor said she'd like to send me a package, too, just for me. And she did. I got all of the above except the dumbbells (darn!). I have been investigating the take since then.

The DVD set includes 12 Tai Chi lessons, which sounds great. I haven't opened it yet. The coupons, pen, and binder (just one) are all examples of products designed for "ease of use". The binder opens really easily, no sprained fingers (and it's easy to insert labels into the plastic as well), the pen has a grip that is easy to hang onto, the scrubbing bubbles is of course meant to make cleaning easy (I don't use these sorts of products), similarly the storage bag coupons.

I have started reading the book on walking. I used to love walking. It was perhaps a favorite activity. Now I can barely walk a half-block before I go into pain that makes me want to turn back. So I am interested in what this book has to say on that subject, if it can actually offer me suggestions that might help.

If any of these items interest you, go to the original post and make a comment on it! Leave me some way to reach you (either in the post or by separate email) and you will be automatically entered in a drawing for one or more of these items. You have until May 31 to do this!

Another Night and Another Morning

Last night I conked out easily and stayed asleep until about five a.m. What a lovely feeling. No uncomfortable leg things, no waking all night long. And I took no drugs.

This morning I made my way to the gym after nine, feeling somewhat lazy, and did my usual little workout with the machines and so on, then took a shower and dressed for the day. I had a cup of tea at the gym cafe before leaving. Because I was up and about I decided to do errands around town. I went to Costco to pick up some things and found that the more I walked around the store the more in pain I was. I could hardly wait to get to the car. The pain was mostly in my right leg, my calf and thigh, but also somewhat in my left knee.

I talked myself into going to Petco to pick up cat food, managed that okay but still in pain, and finally stopped at CVS to get paper towels (I get them there because they have 100% recycled paper towels as well as 100% recycled TP in 1000-sheet rolls). Then to home, where I managed to get everything inside before I heated up some soup and some Boca burgers for my lunch.

What I want more than anything else is to be able to walk around without pain. That's it.

some progress?

Yesterday my knee was hurting still, and I did not want to do the regular arthritis exercises. I should have done them anyway but I did not.

Today, though, I got in my thirty minutes. I did it by pushing a cart around Costco for over 30 minutes. The cart gave me a crutch of sorts, some help, and even though it was initially very painful I felt able to manage better as I went on. After about 45 minutes I started to lose it, though, and was grateful to get back to my car.

What I learned: if I bring a cane or walking stick with me I can do better, at least get through the 30 minutes, while I am in this rather miserable state.