Weeks 8 and 9

Range of Motion:  My range of motion got over 100 degrees.  It's pretty tight at the top but not necessarily painful.  I could sit at my desk basically all day without much discomfort.

Physical Therapy:  At week 8, we got to start doing much more than just muscle stimulation.  Additionally, we began a walking program on the Alter-G.  Basically this machine creates a vacuum around your legs and lifts you up so you are putting only a percentage of body weight on your legs.  You have to put these shorts on that have a hoop-thing that zips you in.  (This doesn't make sense until you see it).  The big advantage is that you can choose what percentage of body weight you want to exercise with; i.e. you can begin walking with only a percentage of your body weight.  We started at approximately 50% of my weight and walked at a very slow pace of 1.1.  It wasn't painful but it was awkward.  I just hadn't walked in two months so it was somewhat challenging but I never felt like my leg was going to buckle from under me. 

These are the shorts that you wear (over your clothes).  Around your waist is the part that zips into the Alter G.

From the waist down you are enclosed within the Alter G.  

In addition to the Alter G we began some biking during Week 9.  We also started doing some actual exercises but none that involved any knee bend.  We did variations of standing on my right leg on top of a piece of memory foam and doing various motions to disrupt my balance such as tossing a ball.  We continued with the Graston tool and also did electrical stimulation.

Pain and Swelling:  My pain was pretty rare and if it was present it was typically a brief moment of pain and did not last long.  I still had a decent amount of swelling and the atrophy is pretty visible still.

Overall Thoughts:  Weeks 8 and 9 were probably some of my toughest mentally.  At this point, I really felt like it was getting hard to just "weather the storm."  My entire summer was spent basically indoors and it got lonely and isolated at times.  I was increasingly more irritable and felt like I had a short fuse.  However, I never felt any sort of regret or second guessed my decision to go forward with surgery.