This has been quite a week! After last Friday's adventures, and the consequences of those adventures, I had a temporary setback in my recovery from knee replacement surgery. Last weekend was all about a swollen knee and extreme fatigue, and Monday's physical therapy session, while productive, didn't yield the same degree of flexibility I had experienced previously. Even though I understood the reason for that, it was still a bit frustrating.
I'm not in a competition to be better than any other person recovering from knee surgery. It is not my goal to say my knee bends more than your knee, or anything like that. My goal is always to be better than I was yesterday. My goal is to get stronger and have a fully functioning knee. My goal is to work as hard as it takes to make that happen. And because it is my goal to continually be making progress, any movement in the opposite direction causes me some frustration, no matter how well I understand the reasons.
I had back to back therapy sessions Wednesday and Thursday, since my physical therapist is out of town again today. Those were grueling sessions. I worked really hard, particularly on Thursday. And while I still have not regained the 105 degree bend I had last week - I'm just a couple of degrees short of that - I feel very satisfied with the progress I have made. I'm getting stronger every day and doing things I couldn't do just a couple of weeks ago. The hard work is paying off, and I am seeing results.
Having therapy two days in a row means tired, sore muscles today. It means I have a swollen knee. This is one of those days when it would be really easy to just sit in the chair connected to my ice machine. Certainly I will spend some time doing that, but not the entire day! Later I'll be back at it again. Stretches and leg lifts. Quad sets and heel slides. Squats and bridges. I'll continue doing all that because I know that if I focus on the effort, then the results will come. It's all about perseverance. It's about not giving up, no matter how tired or frustrated or sore I am.
That's the lesson learned through this whole experience. Perseverance. Keep on keeping on. Never give up. Focus on doing what you know you should do. Eventually the results will come.
It's a good lesson for life, not just for recovery from knee replacement surgery.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4 NIV)
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