MY ACL STORY: The Week When Things Get Back to Normal....

A little quote to brighten your day :)

Hello everyone :)
Week 4:
I love the fact that every day I wake up, I can feel a difference in my knee. It's always so motivating to carry on once you've already seen such a difference, it's very addicting aha! This week, things seemed to - more or less - get themselves back to normal. I started back at college again, after being off for nearly 4 weeks due to the surgery, and I got back into the gym at physiotherapy again. I never expected this recovery to get going as fast as it has done, I'm honestly so proud of myself :)

So first of all, I started back at college this week, and to say it's been stressful would be a  MASSIVE understatement. Not only am I still on crutches, but most of my lessons include going up stairs, which is not an easy task to undertake when there are 100s of people around. But thankfully I was given the key to the lift to use and abuse, and it is fabulous!
By the end of the day I can definitely feel the strain on my knee, and my hamstrings too. It'll be when I'm sat on a chair (which in a sixth form college, they are not the most high quality of chairs, let's be honest) and I'll feel a twinge in the back of my thigh and I then have to reposition myself on the chair, all whilst trying to still pay attention. *sigh* Here's hoping things get easier soon.
My teachers and fellow pupils have been really supportive though, and have been an incredible help, so that makes things easier :)

This week also saw my second physiotherapy session (to read about my first, click here). I knew from my last session that I was going to be in the gym this time, so I was a bit apprehensive about it as I was worried that it would be too much pain to handle. But everything went great, woo hoo!
I started off by doing 10 minutes on the exercise bike (which is something that I struggled to do before surgery), and then I moved on to do some stepping exercises onto a box. This then progressed to almost lunging off of the other side too. The lunging hurt my knee slightly but the pain is different to the pain that I felt pre-surgery, as that wasn't helping anything, whereas this is a "no pain, no gain" type thing aha!

Balance-y, Balance-y!

I was then asked to balance on my bad leg, which even my physiotherapist wasn't sure I'd be able to do, but I DID! The amount of pleasure you get when you do something that people don't think you can is unbelievable aha. I was a bit wobbly at first, but after the first few times my leg was really strong and stood well on it's own.
The next few exercises were mainly conditioning and strengthening, which I was also told to add to my exercises to do at home.
I also learned some more about my meniscus tear, in the fact that it was a lateral meniscus tear which would explain why I felt more pain on the right side of my knee than anywhere else after injuring it. And I was also referred to a new physiotherapist for my future appointments who deals with the ACL patients post-op, so he can point me towards the right direction of where I should be.

So, this week has been the week of getting back to normal, and it feels blimming good to be back there!
I'm now down to no crutches in the house, and my leg is feeling strong. I'm still using 2 outside the house though as I'm still quite cautious of other people, but that is getting better day by day too.
If you would like to read my experience of my other weeks post-op, then you can find those blog posts here.
Feel free to leave me a comment if you've been through this (because I could use all of the advice and knowledge), or if you just feel like leaving a comment :)
Stay positive and keep on being you x